It’s getting to be that time of year—tomato time.
And what better way to celebrate the season than reading William Alexander’s Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World.
To tempt you to run to your nearest library, download it on your Kindle, or search Amazon for a copy, I’ve put together a Tomato Trivia Test from my reading of the book. Spoiler Alert: The answers are only available by reading the book—no fair Googling anything.
True or False:
–The Margherita Pizza (tomato, mozzarella and basil—red, white and green like the Italian flag) originated in Naples, Italy, and was named after King Umberto’s wife.
–To preserve San Marzano tomatoes, the people of Naples dry them on their terra-cotta rooftops.
–The tomato is native to Peru.
–A founding member of the Fascist Party published a manifesto in 1930 calling for the “abolition of pasta”. He claimed too much pasta made Italian men too heavy and unprepared for war.
–Sungold, a golden cherry tomato hybrid and Laurie’s favorite, was bred in Japan.
Fill in the blank:
–Pasta names and their English equivalent: spaghetti means “little strings,” farfalle means “butterflies” and ___________ means “little worms”.
–The number of tomatoes in every bottle of Heinz ketchup, ___ dozen.
–The first day Naples, Italy, pizzerias were allowed to open for takeout after the 2020 ______ lockdown, 60,000 pizzas were ordered.
–A recipe featuring ________ first appeared in 1694 in an Italian cookbook written by Antonio Latini.
–Laurie remembers her grandmother, ______, calling the refrigerator an “ice box.” That’s probably because in 1958 only 1 in 8 Italian households had a modern refrigerator.
(Answer to this one is “Nene,” since William Alexander never met Nene, nor Laurie, for that matter.)
Mesclun Follow-Up: Turns out my sister Lee Ann has three window boxes of mesclun going, and like all that she does, she is organized and efficient. Her son Liam used to work at River Bank Farm in CT, and he said they would get two cuttings from their mesclun. So, Lee Ann starts another row of seeds after the first cut and plants more when she pulls out the old. “The price of salad greens motivates me.”
They’ve lived in their “forever home” on Cape Cod for only a year and she’s already had the kitchen completely remodeled, sanded and primed the deck, is helping plan her youngest daughter’s wedding on the Cape in August, and never lets her mesclun go to flower.
Cherry Picking Time: At my friends Pam and Norm’s place, it is cherry-picking time. They dangle CDs to frighten the birds away from the ripening fruit.