Piennolo del Vesuvio: the hanging cherry tomato that lasts into winter

The piennolo, a hanging larder

The specification describes precisely the gesture that names the product. The harvested clusters, called schiocche, are arranged on a ring of plant-fibre string until they form a single large cluster, the piennolo, weighing between one and five kilos at the end of storage. Piennoli are kept off the ground on hooks or supports, in a dry, ventilated place.

No chemical treatment is allowed during storage: only physical systems such as insect nets and ultrasound devices. The duration is not fixed and depends on how long the fruit keeps its qualities. The Vesuvius National Park speaks of clusters kept until Christmas; Qualigeo gives 7-8 months from harvest.

Over time, the Campania Region explains, the tomato loses some firmness but gains an intense flavour that Neapolitans seek out for sauces: that is why this hanging larder has survived to this day.

Sources: Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 192 del 18 agosto 2017 — Disciplinare della DOP «Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio» · Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio — Agricoltura e artigianato · Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP · Regione Campania, Assessorato all'Agricoltura — Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP

Fiaschella, Lampadina, Re Umberto

The PDO covers ecotypes derived from folk varieties long grown on the slopes of Vesuvius: Fiaschella, Lampadina, Patanara, Principe Borghese and Re Umberto. The names, the Campania Region notes, are those given by the farmers themselves, who carried out the selection for decades.

The specification relates that each year the best fruit was chosen to keep its seed, and that in the first half of the twentieth century these tomatoes were already well known and widespread. Hybrids are excluded: the designation protects precisely this genetic heritage built field by field.

In Campania, the Region notes, there are several groups of small-fruited ecotypes, the pomodorini, which differ in hardiness and quality; those of Vesuvius have always been the most famous. What unites them, even more than their shape, is the old practice of keeping them al piennolo, which the PDO chose as its distinctive trait.

Sources: Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 192 del 18 agosto 2017 — Disciplinare della DOP «Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio» · Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP · Regione Campania, Assessorato all'Agricoltura — Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP

From the Nativity scene to the Portici professors

The piennolo tomato is so rooted in Neapolitan culture, the Campania Region writes, that it even appears in the scenes of the traditional Nativity crib. Written sources are old too. In 1858 Bruni, in his book on vegetables grown around Naples, described very tasty cherry tomatoes that kept until spring as long as they were tied in strings and hung from the rafters.

In 1885 Palmieri, in the yearbook of the Royal Higher School of Agriculture in Portici, described the Vesuvian custom of keeping in shady places the fruit of the variety called 'p'appennere', for hanging. In 1902 Francesco De Rosa, a teacher at the same school, noted that the old 'cerasella' had been replaced by the flask-shaped type, better suited to the piennolo, and was the first to describe the whole growing technique.

In 1916 Marzio Cozzolino confirmed the earlier descriptions and added economic data. From sowing to the sale of the stored product, a real local economy had already grown up around this tomato.

Sources: Regione Campania, Assessorato all'Agricoltura — Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP · Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 192 del 18 agosto 2017 — Disciplinare della DOP «Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio»

Eighteen towns around the volcano

The area includes the whole territory of Boscoreale, Boscotrecase, Cercola, Ercolano, Massa di Somma, Ottaviano, Pollena Trocchia, Portici, Sant'Anastasia, San Giorgio a Cremano, San Giuseppe Vesuviano, San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, Somma Vesuviana, Terzigno, Torre Annunziata, Torre del Greco and Trecase, plus part of the municipality of Nola: eighteen towns in all, mostly within Vesuvius National Park. The Region explains that the area coincides with the whole Somma-Vesuvius volcanic complex, including the slopes that run down almost to the sea.

The PDO has been registered since 16 December 2009; the current specification is the one published in the Official Gazette on 18 August 2017 after a minor amendment. The protection consortium, based in San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, was recognised by a decree of 10 April 2013.

The soil is made of pyroclastic material from the eruptions, and according to the Region it is this environment that gives the tomato its typical lively acidity.

Sources: Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 192 del 18 agosto 2017 — Disciplinare della DOP «Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio» · Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP · Gazzetta Ufficiale — Riconoscimento del Consorzio di tutela del Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio (decreto 10 aprile 2013) · Regione Campania, Assessorato all'Agricoltura — Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP

Open fields, lava soil, summer harvest

The specification bans greenhouses, tunnels and soilless growing. Transplanting takes place between 15 March and 15 May, with no more than 55,000 plants per hectare. Plants grow upright to one metre, tied to wires between stakes or to canes set in groups of three like a small hut, so the fruit does not touch the ground and gets even sunlight. Fertilising is organic, suited to lava soils low in humus; irrigation must be localised. Harvest is by hand between 20 June and 31 August, with a maximum of 25 tonnes per hectare. The text explains that the dry volcanic soil and wide day-night temperature swings give a firm skin and very flavourful, long-keeping fruit.

Sources: Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 192 del 18 agosto 2017 — Disciplinare della DOP «Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio»

A small, scattered harvest

The Campania Region describes a highly fragmented crop, made up of small plots scattered unevenly over the slopes of Somma-Vesuvius. The estimated area is about 480 hectares, with annual output of around 4,000 tonnes of fresh fruit and yields that vary widely from field to field.

Harvesting, the page explains, is done by cutting whole clusters when at least 70% of the tomatoes are red and the rest are still ripening. This is what allows long storage: in the piennolo ripening continues slowly and the fruit, whole and unprocessed, is eaten throughout the winter, up to seven or eight months later, in airy rooms and without modern technology.

The market season is therefore long, from July to May of the following year. According to the Region, PDO recognition has given the sector new momentum, but the difficult terrain and the small size of the farms limit its growth: one reason why the supply of packaged piennoli remains modest.

Sources: Regione Campania, Assessorato all'Agricoltura — Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP

How to recognise it, fresh or hung

Fresh, the tomato weighs no more than 30 grams and is oval or slightly plum-shaped with a pointed tip, the pizzo, often ribbed near the stalk; its colour is vermilion, its flesh red and firm, its taste lively, intense and sweet-sour, with at least 6.5 degrees Brix, and it stays firmly attached to the stalk. Stored on the piennolo it turns dark red outside, loses some firmness and, according to Qualigeo, develops a slightly bitter aftertaste. It is sold fresh or stored, as loose fruit or clusters in sealed containers of up to 10 kilos, or as single piennoli of up to 5 kilos. The logo is a tomato silhouette whose stalk traces the outline of Vesuvius with two puffs of smoke.

Sources: Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 192 del 18 agosto 2017 — Disciplinare della DOP «Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio» · Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP

Fresh tomatoes in winter and the pacchetelle preserve

The specification explains why the crop took hold: it needs little care and keeps for a long time thanks to its thick skin, firm stalk attachment and high sugar and acid content. Neapolitan families thus had fresh tomatoes even in winter for pizzas and first courses. Vesuvian families also make a traditional preserve called a pacchetelle: unpeeled tomatoes are cut by hand into halves or wedges and kept in glass jars. Qualigeo considers it the main ingredient of spaghetti and pizza and irreplaceable in fish, shellfish and seafood dishes. A European traceability project backed by the Campania Region's rural development programme also notes the risk of fraud, with production declared outside the PDO area.

Sources: Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 192 del 18 agosto 2017 — Disciplinare della DOP «Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio» · Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP · Commissione europea, EU CAP Network — Progetto di tracciabilità del Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP

Campania's other small tomatoes

Besides the Vesuvian piennolo, Campania keeps many other place-bound tomatoes. The national list of traditional food products records for the region, among others, the corbarino, the yellow cherry tomato, those of the Ufita and of Rofrano, the dry-farmed tomato of Gesualdo, the Sorrento tomato, Battipaglia's fiaschello, the Re Umberto and Neapolitan peeled tomatoes.

The Vesuvius National Park notes that the same slopes grow Vesuvian apricots, a group of more than forty biotypes celebrated in summer at festivals in Pollena Trocchia and Sant'Anastasia, as well as cherries, citrus, walnuts and olives. Among grape varieties the Park lists coda di volpe or caprettone, falanghina, piedirosso, sciascinoso and aglianico, which make Lacryma Christi, and catalanesca, a table grape grown on the slopes of Somma.

These are different kinds of recognition: a PDO has a controlled specification, a traditional product documents a local custom. Together they make up the basket for a day on the volcano.

Sources: Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali 2022, allegato I (copia pubblicata dal progetto regionale Biodiversità Puglia) · Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio — Agricoltura e artigianato

Tasting it and taking it home

In summer I would look for fresh tomatoes in a very quick sauce, barely cooked, to taste their sweet-sour edge; in autumn and winter the same fruit taken from the piennolo, more concentrated, in a fish dish or on pizza. Comparing the two states tells the product's story better than any description.

A whole piennolo makes a fine souvenir but should be treated as something alive: hung at home, dry and airy, not shut in a bag. Before buying I would check for the logo with Vesuvius and the full PDO wording; for those short of space, the pacchetelle preserve in glass jars is the easiest format to pack.

Field visits on the volcano's slopes must be arranged with the operators, ideally in early summer when the cane frames are laden. I would combine the day with a climb to the crater or a visit to the excavations at the foot of the volcano.