Jersey Fresh Tomatoes

Went to Whole Foods looking for some canned tomatoes and stumbled upon the Jersey Fresh brand...insert joke here. Watching America's Test Kitchen, they always preach using tomatoes that aren't packed in tomato puree, sauce, and preservatives. Surprisingly, this brand was the only one I found that listed tomatoes and salt as the only ingredients. Most were packed in puree, juice or sauce.

So, I brought this bad boy home for a test run and the first thing I always do is to eat the tomatoes right out of the can. These were delicious and had a great bright tomato flavor with a good amount of sweetness. It really tasted fresher than most canned tomatoes.

It was a shocking revelation and I always used to go for the famed San Marzano tomatoes. I need to do a side by side comparison, but my initial reaction is the Jersey tomatoes tasted fresher, fuller, and were much better. This revelation was like finding out there was no Santa Claus. I always bought into the belief that the volcanic ash from the region made the San Marzano tomatoes superior to all others. That maybe the case in Italy; however, Italian canned tomatoes in the US are always packed in puree which may give it a more cooked flavor. This is done to avoid some US import tax.

Any who, rocking the Carmellini sauce with the Jersey brand yielded a completely WTF moment. The sauce is full of rich tomato flavor, still retaining it's brightness and has a nice sweetness to it. It definitely will be my go to canned tomato when making da sauce. Another bonus in this tough economy is they're $2 versus the $5 or 6 for the San Marzanos.