In praise of tinned tomatoes

Back in the 1980s I followed Rosemary Conley’s Hip & Thigh Diet. It was immensely popular at the time and my overriding memory is that many, if not most, of the dishes were based on tinned tomatoes. (A quick web search finds that the RC Slimming Club still exists). I can remember, sometime around 2006, when a tin of Tesco Value chopped tomatoes was 9p. I was very keen on the MoneySavingExpert.com forum at that time, as we were saving up for our big European trip, and many of the debt-busting recipes were tomato-based. Perhaps there was some sort of tomato crisis a few years later, but I recall the price rising pretty sharply to around 30p where it seems to have remained. It’s a few years since I left the UK, but I just checked Tesco’s website and see that the price of Value tomatoes today is 31p. There’s a Bien Vu range of goods in the supermarkets here in France too, and the basic tinned tomatoes are comparable at 37c.

The strange thing about France is that often it’s difficult to source ingredients that are freely available in many other European countries. I’d grown used to the fact that you couldn’t get chopped tinned tomatoes here. All the tinned tomatoes are whole. Of course, you can chop them up yourself, but I find it’s not quite the same result, and I was reminded of this on a recent trip to Germany. I made a Chickpea and Spinach Curry and found that the sauce was far superior to the one I normally make at home because I’d used a box of chopped tomatoes from REWE, my new favourite supermarket.

The other thing that I noticed was that the quality of these chopped tomatoes was far superior to their French Bien Vu cousins. Recently, I have noticed that the cheaper tinned whole tomatoes are becoming increasingly watery, a factor which detrimentally affects the consistency of the sauce, even with added puree or stock and there are often nasty, hard green stalks on the tomatoes themselves that never cook down. I decided to a bit of research about tinned tomatoes and came up with some interesting information. First, a shout-out to a great website/ blog dedicated to vegetarian and vegan food with the brilliant name Tinned Tomatoes and over 600 vegetarian and vegan recipes.

Seems I’m not the first to wonder about the quality of tinned tomatoes. The BBC Good Food website guide to buying tinned tomatoes confirms the health benefits of tinned tomatoes, apparently the cooking process releases the antioxidant lycopene. The article does appear to come down in favour of the slightly more expensive Italian chopped tomatoes, but I may try the advice to use a sprinkling of sugar or bicarb to neutralise the acidic flavour of the cheaper varieties and tomato puree to thicken up the watery sauce. Along similar lines, the Guardian carried out a survey earlier this year taste testing a whole range of tinned and bottled tomatoes with prices ranging from 31p to £5. I wasn’t surprised that the most expensive five pounds per bottle Italian variety came out on top, but I’m not sure our palates warrant that much expense.

Last week I went to SuperU to stock up after our holiday and came across ‘Special sauce des de tomates’ billed as tomatoes cooked at the point of ripeness. At €1.59 for a pack of three tins they were about the same price as a tin of branded or Italian tomatoes. It turned out that they were in fact just plain ordinary chopped tomatoes, but it’s progress. I was pleased to see that they were also available in tetra Pak boxes which are so much easier to store in the campervan and lighter in weight. So, this week I’ll be looking for some more tomato-based recipes and the next time I’m in the supermarket I’m going to look out for some different brands so that I can do a taste test of my own.   

 

Spinach and Chickpea curry