Canning Tomato Sauce 

Featuring Gina The Italian Grandma’

In Beautiful Broken English

Canning tomato Sauce was something we did every year back in the day. The idea of buying canned or jarred tomato sauce such as Ragu or Chef Boiardi was completely out of the question. My mother, her mother and her mother… my great Grandmother Annunziata would have my dad drive us to the farm and pick bushels of tomatoes for canning.  We kids helped too. I still remember the jars submerged in boiling water and all of that. It was just something you did and I love sharing the memories of all the work that went into it. 

Funny …. one year when we went back to Pietraroia. That’s the town in Campania where my maternal grandfather emigrated from. When we called my cousins telling them that we wanted to come visit…  we took them totally by surprise. They were right in the middle of …. you guessed it…. jarring tomatoes. What a beautiful sight as we all pitched in and helped. A lot of work that’s true but in reality a labor of love.

I don’t pretend to know which tomatoes are the best for jarring. I’m sure the expert Italian grandmothers can though. We just went to the farm in New Jersey (Still known as the Garden State) and picked them. Once the bed of the pickup was full we headed home for the real operation. 

But that was then and this is now. As the song says… “That was yesterday and yesterday’s gone.” That’s for most people but still to this day there are many Italians whether in Italy, Australia, American, Canada, Argetina or where ever that still follow the tradition and jar their tomatoes. God bless them. 

Check out this wonderful video from Italian Grandma’ Gina as she teaches us how to can Tomato Sauce in

Beautiful Broken English