NEWS FROM ELI'S WORLD, Spring 2000
"IT'S THE TOMATOES!

(ALL RIGHT, IT'S THE SOIL TOO)
There you are, facing a shelf of pasta trying to choose the one that won't make your family irritated you are not making dinner: Short of trying every one, (a daunting task given the recent proliferation of sauces, when a new brand seems to appear every month), how do you choose which one is going to taste like a sauce you've made yourself?

The answer is the tomatoes.
The best tomatoes in the world is the san marzano - the name of the tomato variety and not necessarily all the tomatoes that come from San Marzano, the town and region outside of Naples. Its low acidity and light sugar content make a perfect tomato for sauce. (It helps that the fields are neer Mt. Vesuvius and the reach volcanic soil seems to be a perfect match with the san marzano.) This is what Neil Fusco, the owner and chef of the restaurant, Amalfi, in Briarcliff Manor,NY and many chefs believe any-way. They may very well be right.

Luckily, Mr. Fusco grew up on a farm in San Marzano and his uncle still farms there, growing san marzano tomatoes. As he watched other restaurants and chefs successfully marketing their sauces, he thought he could do it too. Taught by his mother, he's been cooking since before he came to America in 1972 at the age of 11. His Cucina Antica sauces he ate as a boy in San Marzano. As with many things, particularly food, the simplest is often the best. Mr. Fusco's sauces are made from san marzano tomatoes, some olive oil, fresh herbs and seasoning. That's it. No stabilizers, no ingredients unpronounceable names. He is very proud that he produced sauces that have "integrity." (His mother pits the Gaeta olives from Italy for his Puttanesca Sauce and a colleague asked why he didn't just leave them whole. "Who would know they're not supposed to be this way?" His answer: "I would know!") And he still does much of the prep work him self in his restaurant kitchen: that's where he'll be roasting fresh peppers for one of the new sauces he is introducing in March."