Tomatoes are ‘the heart of Italian cuisine’

But after the Food and Drug Administration linked tomatoes to a nationwide salmonella outbreak sickening more than 200 people, some of Baltimore’s Italian restaurants changed the foundation of their cooking.

“Della Notte is an Italian restaurant, and we don’t have any choice but to serve tomatoes,” said Rita Lymperopoulos, a manager at Della Notte. “Seventy percent of pasta dishes are mainly made with tomato sauce, but we are very careful in what tomatoes we are using.”

Della Notte, a classically inspired contemporary Italian kitchen, struck plum and Roma tomatoes from its list of basic ingredients.

Gia Blattermann-Fugate, the owner of newly opened Southern Italian restaurant Café Gia, saw the salmonella scare as an advantage.

“When we heard about the salmonella, we went to our vendor and requested vine-grown tomatoes, which was good, because it introduced us to better-quality tomatoes,” she said. “They are quite more expensive, but when it comes to the safety of our customers, nothing is too expensive.”

Little is known about where the salmonella is coming from or how it contaminates tomatoes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but washing produce won’t remove the salmonella.

Salmonella could get inside whole tomatoes through the stem scar or when contaminated water contacts the stem or flower of a tomato plant, the CDC reports.

Even though the tomato is “the heart of Italian cuisine,” Della Notte and Café Gia haven’t lost sales, Lymperopoulos insists.

“Our business hasn’t decreased, but I see more people order salads without tomatoes,” Lymperopoulos said.

ana.sebescen@baltimoreexaminer.com