APULICA / FRUIT, VEGETABLES AND PULSES
Belmonte tomato
PAT · Fruit, vegetables and pulses · Calabria
In brief
- It came from America in the early twentieth century with an emigrant from Belmonte Calabro, and local families have kept their own selections. (Fondazione Slow Food — Arca del Gusto, Pomodoro di Belmonte)
- It is oxheart-shaped, can reach one and a half kilos and turns from pink to red when ripe. (Fondazione Slow Food — Arca del Gusto, Pomodoro di Belmonte)
- It is sold almost only on the local market, rarely beyond the province. (Fondazione Slow Food — Arca del Gusto, Pomodoro di Belmonte)
History and origin
The Belmonte tomato came from America in the early twentieth century with an emigrant from the town, Guglielmo Mercurio. Since then the growers of Belmonte Calabro have reproduced it "true to type", selecting the seed year after year, and each family has ended up with its own selection. In dialect it is called u pimmaduaru e Bellimunte.
The tomato is listed in Italy's national register of traditional food products, carries Belmonte's municipal designation of origin (De.C.O.) and is on Slow Food's Ark of Taste. Since 2025 it has also been in Calabria's regional register of agricultural biodiversity.
Because it is sold almost only on the local market, Slow Food warns that the crop risks being abandoned. To save it ARSAC and the Municipality of Belmonte ran a recovery project: from 2014 they surveyed the local populations among growers, studied their characteristics and set up conservation plots in the town and at the Molarotta experimental centre in the Sila.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Arca del Gusto, Pomodoro di Belmonte · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026) · ARSAC — Opuscolo 'Il Pomodoro di Belmonte: caratteristiche morfologiche e colturali' · ARSAC — Registro regionale della biodiversità agraria della Calabria · ARSAC — Pomodoro di Belmonte Calabro: recupero e valorizzazione della risorsa genetica
Area and method of production
Belmonte Calabro stands on hillside terraces overlooking the Tyrrhenian coast of Cosenza province, and ARSAC links the tomato's qualities to the climate and soils of this area. The soil study mapped the parts of the municipality suited to the crop, from the coastal plain and marine terraces below 50 metres up to slopes between 300 and 600 metres.
The project identified eight local populations of the classic "oxheart", two of the so-called "round giant" and one sauce tomato called "a barchetta". Genetic analyses, carried out with the vegetable research centre at Pontecagnano, confirmed that the Belmonte ecotypes differ from commercial varieties and from similar tomatoes elsewhere.
The Belmonte tomato likes soils rich in organic matter and generous organic manuring, and suits sustainable and organic farming, since it has shown no particular sensitivity to the main tomato diseases. Away from home results vary: on the flat land of the Crati valley it did poorly, while in high hills and mountains it adapted well.
Sources: ARSAC — Opuscolo 'Il Pomodoro di Belmonte: caratteristiche morfologiche e colturali' · ARSAC — Pomodoro di Belmonte Calabro: recupero e valorizzazione della risorsa genetica
How to recognise it
The classic belmonte is oxheart-shaped and very large: a single fruit can reach a kilo and a half. It is pink, turning red when fully ripe.
The flesh is very firm, not mealy, almost crunchy. Cut across, it shows a very large core in relation to its diameter, and it ripens from the centre outwards: so choosing the right moment to pick is essential, something Belmonte growers know well. ARSAC tasting panels found a marked sweetness with low acidity in some selections.
It is a summer tomato: in greenhouse trials ripening began in mid-June and picking went on until the end of July.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Arca del Gusto, Pomodoro di Belmonte · ARSAC — Pomodoro di Belmonte Calabro: recupero e valorizzazione della risorsa genetica · ARSAC — Prove di adattabilità in serra di antiche varietà autoctone di pomodoro calabrese
In the kitchen
The official sources on the belmonte describe its growing and qualities rather than recipes: firm, almost crunchy flesh, sweetness and low acidity in some selections. Among the populations studied by ARSAC there is also a sauce tomato, called "a barchetta".
The belmonte belongs to a Calabrian cuisine rich in tomato dishes, many of them listed among traditional food products: stuffed tomatoes, pummaroro chini; sursuminata, scrambled eggs with tomato; red tomato jam; sun-dried tomatoes, also stuffed or in oil.
The town has other flavours too: the cultivars of Peperoncino di Calabria PGI include a Tondo di Belmonte, and Belmonte lies within the production area of the Cipolla Rossa di Tropea Calabria.
Sources: ARSAC — Pomodoro di Belmonte Calabro: recupero e valorizzazione della risorsa genetica · ARSAC (Regione Calabria) — I prodotti DOP, IGP e PAT della Calabria · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026) · ARSAC — Peperoncino di Calabria IGP · Consorzio di Tutela della Cipolla Rossa di Tropea Calabria IGP — Il territorio
Where to taste it
The belmonte is tasted in its home town, Belmonte Calabro, a village on the Cosenza Tyrrhenian coast between Amantea and Longobardi, and in the surrounding area: its distribution rarely goes beyond the province, so it is best sought locally, in the summer season.
The fields lie on the terraces running down to the sea and on the town's hillsides, where the growers taking part in the recovery project keep their family selections.
A route along the Cosenza Tyrrhenian coast can link Belmonte with other coastal towns, such as Amantea, Longobardi with its violet aubergine and Fiumefreddo Bruzio, to discover the vegetable gardens and products of a stretch of Calabria between sea and hills.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Arca del Gusto, Pomodoro di Belmonte · ARSAC — Opuscolo 'Il Pomodoro di Belmonte: caratteristiche morfologiche e colturali' · ARSAC — Pomodoro di Belmonte Calabro: recupero e valorizzazione della risorsa genetica · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Melanzana violetta di Longobardi · Comune di Longobardi — Longobardi tra mito, leggenda e storia
Protection
- Traditional agri-food product (PAT) — Calabria, n. 134, 26th revision (Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026) · Fondazione Slow Food — Arca del Gusto, Pomodoro di Belmonte)
When
- The sources consulted give no months.
Where
Read more
Belmonte tomato
A pink tomato that can weigh over a kilo, brought back by an emigrant in the early 1900s, Belmonte's gammune, the ship-shaped village and the sea around the Isca rocks: a summer guide to the Cosenza Tyrrhenian coast.
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