Tomatoes - There Are Also Problems

In recent years, a growing trend has been developing in America: utilizing the wonderful and inexpensive summer tomatoes to prepare dried tomatoes. The first sun-dried tomatoes were prepared in southern Italy, where tomatoes and olive oil are foundations of the cuisine. For us, with our humidity and air pollution, it's not really recommended to dry tomatoes in the sun, and that's not all.

And generally, regarding dried fruits, have you ever thought about whether fruits are dried today like our forefathers, who would spread fruits and spices on a mat in their garden and leave them exposed to all field animals for days until the fruit dries and becomes edible, or perhaps there are more advanced methods.

Well, it turns out that nothing has changed, except for the quantities, which are now many times greater. And even in our holy land, for example - all the raisins that are dried here in Israel undergo a drying process only in the sun. But all this is still small compared to what happens in the dried tomato market.

Dried tomatoes - are a very popular food, suitable for juicy seasoning, and serve as a wonderful raw material for preparing spreads, shakshuka, and it is very likely that we encounter it many times even without being aware of it. The tomato itself in its growth process and even when consumed from the greengrocer is considered a clean fruit that is not infested, so if the tomato is washed, it can be eaten without any concern and does not need inspection for worms before eating, but the dried tomato, for kosher purposes, is a serious problem... and the reason is as follows:

Drying tomatoes in most countries of the world, especially in Turkey, which by the way - most of the dried tomatoes marketed in Israel come from there, is done in a very primitive way. The tomatoes are spread in open areas and in most cases in the fields themselves where the tomatoes grew, halved on plastic surfaces and exposed to all food pests, such as storage pests which include various types of moths, ants, larvae, and many families of beetles that lay their eggs inside the tomato. And if that's not enough, let's imagine what happens to tomatoes when they start to ferment and undergo a kind of rotting process before they dry. Imagine - the huge quantities of fermentation flies (the type of flies found near garbage cans) that swarm on the tomatoes, leaving their traces and laying their eggs, and to remind you - pupae of fermentation flies require highly professional knowledge to identify them; to an ordinary person they look like one of the tomato seeds.

When the tomato dries, it shrinks significantly and folds, becoming layers upon layers in which all food insects are hidden, preventing the possibility of cleaning it. Even if we wash and scrub it thoroughly, all the worms remain inside without the ability to get out, so the external cleaning done to the tomato before it is vacuum-packed is not effective at all.

From repeated examinations of dried tomatoes, it has been determined almost without any doubt - that they cannot be cleaned. In the last examination conducted on half a kilogram of dried tomatoes after washing in cold water, 2 insects were found; when washed again in hot water, 6 insects were found; and again washed in hot water and 5 more insects were found; and again washed and again worms were found, so that on average in half a kilogram of tomatoes there are more than twenty insects.

For you - the story is similar for almost all dried fruits, and especially! in raisins, which after drying become shriveled with many folds in which insects are hidden. Prefer oven drying where there is no penetration of insects during the drying process. So, don't compromise, look for them on the shelf.

Our thanks to Rabbi Yishai Malka, one of the Badatz supervisors, who shared these findings with us.