A proper insalata Caprese is one of the jewels of Campania's incomparable cuisine.
All that's required are ripe tomatoes just off the vine, fresh mozzarella di bufala, basil coaxed to aromatic fullness by the sun's heat, a sprinkling of coarse salt, a grind of pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. It's a gloriously simple dish that happily reproduces the colors of the Italian flag and virtually stares up from the plate, whispering "high summer."
The fact that you now can order some variation of it in February from half of America's restaurant menus or supermarket takeout counters goes a long way toward explaining what's behind the current national recall of tomatoes across the United States.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 167 people in 17 states have fallen ill from salmonella since mid-April. Twenty-three have been hospitalized, and one has died. Federal officials have traced the infections to three types of tomatoes -- contaminated plum, Roma and round red.
Initially confined mostly to Texas and New Mexico, the federal recall of the tainted produce went national over the weekend, and supermarkets across the country, including those in L.A., have removed the three suspect varieties from their shelves. On Monday, McDonald's stopped adding a slice of tomato to hamburgers served in America, and the Los Angeles Unified School District "indefinitely suspended" serving uncooked tomatoes in its cafeterias.
Food and Drug Administration officials are working rapidly to identity the contamination's source -- some reports say the search has narrowed to Florida and Mexico -- while stressing that it's safe to eat all tomatoes grown in Arkansas, California, Georgia, Hawaii, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Belgium, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel, the Netherlands and Puerto Rico.
But stop and think for a moment about the breadth of that list. The reason so many countries are selling tomatoes to this country is because of Americans' demand to have fresh tomatoes on their Caprese salads (and in their sandwiches and salsa frescas and gazpachos) all year round -- and not just in the summer when they're in season in the United States. This has created a global industry that now does $1.27 billion a year in business.
