Claudia Romeo: We're in Corato, Puglia, Italy,
and today I'm going to meet with Isabella and her family,
who are going to show me how they make their tomato sauce,
in their garden.
Finding a family that makes traditional tomato sauce
from their own tomatoes in their own house
has become pretty rare, sadly, here in Italy.
This is such a fascinating tradition,
and, most of all, it is the original way to make it.
So, they've got about 20 kilos of tomatoes ready for us.
Let's go and turn them into sauce.
Making tomato sauce from scratch is a laborious process
that takes several hours,
from handpicking each tomato
to adding basil leaves into jars one by one.
It has a far greater meaning than just preserving
the harvest of the summer.
For Isabella, her mother, Dina, and her daughter, Federica,
it is a bonding experience
that brings together three generations.
Claudia: Isabella and her family planted 80 plants
of tomatoes this year.
From them, they have harvested about 200 kilos of tomatoes.
After seeding in the spring,
tomato plants need two or three months to mature,
depending on weather conditions.
This is their third harvest of the summer.
Claudia: All together, the tomatoes are then boiled
over a fire in this big pot.
Claudia: Once drained, the tomatoes
are placed in this strainer,
which will separate the pulp from the skin and the seeds.
[machine whirring]
It looks like Federica's task got another upgrade,
and she's now in charge of pushing the tomatoes
in the machine, while Nonna Dina supervises.
Claudia: The family uses any kind of container they can find
in their pantry, from old honey jars to Coke bottles.
Before being filled with the tomato sauce,
they are filled with the best possible basil leaves
Federica can pick from the garden.
This is to add flavor to the sauce.
Claudia: The freshly prepared sauce
is then scooped into the jars.
Claudia: To make sure they can be preserved for a long time,
the jars are given a final boil for 15 minutes.
This will also sterilize them.