Peelomania! - Umberto Tosi
The other day, I noticed the words "STEAM PEELED" displayed on a can of tomatoes that I took from the cupboard to make a pasta sauce. I'd probably seen that label or one like it many times before, but this time it triggered a cascade of memories. Canned tomatoes bearing that label would have signified a dream come true for a brief but frenzied period in my life fifty years ago. That's when I came down with tomato fever. For a while there, I was convinced that I was going to get rich overnight, revolutionizing California's multi-billion-dollar ag business and saving the environment in the process. Tomato fever took me from East to West Coast, from Boston, to California's fertile Central Valley, to Parma, Italy and on to Bejing as part of an international, industrial food processing consortium with a psych-ward nervous breakdown stopover. it's a true story that I still have trouble believing sometimes, an adventure full of sound and fury that netted little ...