Making Tomato Pasta Sauce.

Most of us just buy Tomato Pasta Sauce from the supermarket in a jar.  But my relatives in Switzerland make it in bulk every year from a small patch of dirt.

Real estate is at a premium in Switzerland, judging by the number of underground tunnels constructed to avoid roads traversing valuable farming land.

I have an uncle who lives there (actually, he’s my dad’s uncle, who is younger than my dad!), and his name is Uncle Pinto.   Uncle Pino rents a small patch of highly fertile soil for about 100 Swiss francs a year so he can grow his fruit and vegetables during spring and summer.

This small patch of dirt is probably the most productive tomato producing area in the solar system, because he asked me to help sauce 150 kilograms of tomatoes  (that’s over 300 pounds) in less than one day.  This ritual creates a truckload of tomato sauce that lasts until the next saucing season – the following autumn.

Saucing involves cutting the crappy bits off the tomatoes, slicing them into quarters, boiling them up in large aluminium pots, with the addition of other flavours such as onions, basil and salt.  This tasty concoction is allowed to cool and is subsequently fed through a saucing machine that removes the tomato skins to produce a rich red tomato sauce of a highly chunky consistency.  I’ve included a photo of this process below:

The sauce is then poured into sterile glass jars, and boiled in water for about 10 minutes for bonus sterilisation purposes.  I was also given the mandatory saucing uniform of a yellow shirt, an indication  of the saucer’s skill. The least amount of red splatter indicates the expert saucer.

I was the worst tomato sauce maker.

Uncle Pino meticulously divides the jars into separate cardboard boxes – there was some allocated for himself and his wife, and the rest would be for his two daughters.

The sauce tastes unbelievable – so much better than the processed stuff from the supermarket.

So know you know how to Make Tomato Pasta Sauce!  If you’re interested, you can buy a sauce maker here.

If you’re starting to feel hungry, then check out my 52 Travel Tips for Weird Food and Drinks!  You probably won’t be hungry after reading them.