ya gotta have balance. :o)

that sounds yummy doesn't it?

Thanks for bringing this to my attention! I found an article that gives a couple of different methods, here's the link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Smoked Tomatoes

Thanks everyone for their input. Sorry I wasn't being clear. The episode I saw, the vine with about 6-8 tomatoes were somehow smoke, without being cut. But they looked like they were just picked, not wrinkle or shrink. I know I am probably not making much sense, but that's what I saw. Darn, hopefully, it will show again and I take a clip or somehow contact Tyler for more info.

Not having seen the show, it is a bit confusing. It sounds as though you're saying the plants were smoked whole, or the tomatoes were smoked while the plants were still in the ground. I would imagine both are possible. To smoke the whole plant just cut the whole vine and hang it to smoke. Smoking a plant in the ground would be trickier, you'd probably have to throw together a plywood enclosure (Alton Brown uses a large appliance box as a makeshift smoker, that was a really neat episode), but it wouldn't be much different than the electric hot plate method I posted earlier. I would imagine it would take a wee bit longer :) Sounds macgyver-ish and lots of fun, a good way to spend the afternoon, smoking tomatoes and drinking sweet tea. I have most of my tomatoes in a 4x8 raised bed which would be pretty easy to enclose. I'd have to chop the indet's in half though, the brandywines are 6-7 feet and the yellow pear towers over it.

I did find reference to using a sort of tent structure and burning tobacco stems to smoke out bugs in grape vines in Italy, perhaps they are doing that to smoke the tomatoes too. Is that close to what you saw?

Basically, Tyler's Ultimate goes to the origin of the dish and then makes his own. He comes upon this house where this family has a vine full of tomatoes picked from the plant. It's literally just hanging from the top over his head as he walked into the house, kinda like how you see garlic hung. He goes on and says that many Italian knows this secret that by smoking the tomatoes, they can preserve it for two months.

I don't see how you can smoke with heat and not cause it to wrinkle unless you either don't smoke it for that long or use cold smoke.

Yeah, to be safe I'd think they would have to be smoked until the water was drastically removed. From what I've read, american recipes recommend smoking until the tomato slices are dry, pliable and leathery, but they also say that the tomatoes keep longer. I know Europe has different food safety recommendations for things like canning, perhaps they also differ in this.

to the OP...

i saw this episode, as well, and when my brain finally remembered it tonight, and i started searching, i found this thread.

to all those asking, it basically looked like the italians on the show had either cut the whole tomato vine off at the base, or even pulled it out of the ground...roots and all...with all of the tomatoes still on the vine.

then, they somehow smoked the WHOLE thing..plant, tomatoes, everything...and hung them upside down.

i couldn't remember that it was 2 months they said the tomatoes would keep, but i remember being amazed by it.

i'll keep on searching around to see if i see anything...but so far, this is the only thread i've found.

Thanks Dave:

I will try to contact Tyler Florence directly and ask him. hee hee ;-).

It kinda sounds like aging beef for months without spoiling it. I don't remember seeing the whole plant though as he was walking under them going into the house, kinda like hung garlic.

oh my I can just imagine how good those would taste with the perfect cheese!

produced by smoke are preservatives. Google it.

Assume the technique is old & suits rural farmsteads' lay outs.
The tomato would be dug up & root trimmed/cleaned.
It would then be hung upside down in a shed where a hard wood fire is already set on smolder. This room would have roof ventilation/thatch to draw the smoke up into continuous circulation .
The process would take at least 3+ days, & probably closer to a week, under low heat.
A gradual drying occurs & the smoke keeps insect/bacterial/fungal agents from landing on the skin, while the tomatoes cure.
The lack of surface oxygen, due to smoke/heat keeps the tomato skin from undergoing any irregular breakdown & so they are intact .
It seems the acid content of the tomato is enough to prevent internal spoilage for a couple of months.
Plum tomatoes that are meaty & have low moisture content seem ideal for this purpose.
Once cured the tomatoes are moved, with the plant, to a rafter where the family can keep a vigilant eye on their food.
In African mud wall/thatched huts it is (was!) common to see crops on their stalk stuck into the roof & the cooking fire inside below smoking up the larder in the eaves.

Simple Method for Drying/Smoking Tomatoes
I found a great resource for saving/preserving tomatoes! This guy is cool and gives a great simple "how to" instructions.
Gary/Louisville

Quote:
"I was watching "Food Finds" on Food Network and saw a man named Larry at a place called Boggy Creek Farm drying Roma tomatoes in a smokehouse. It takes three to five days for Larry to dry tomatoes this way, and he sells them in 2 ounce bags for $7.50 each.
I don't have a smokehouse, nor do I have the patience to spend five days drying tomatoes, but I figured I could do something similar with the WSM.

You can use smoke-dried tomatoes as you would sun-dried tomatoes. Add them to pizza, pasta, casseroles, stews, sauces, soups, salads, dips, stuffing, antipastos, scrambled eggs, cornbread...the possibilities are endless!

Smoke-dried tomatoes can be packed into sterilized glass jars with or without sprigs of fresh herbs, covered with extra-virgin olive oil, and stored in the refrigerator. The olive oil becomes infused with the smoky tomato flavor and is just delicious.
As always...click on any of the pictures to view a larger image."
http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/tomatoes1.html

Better Than Sundried --- Smoked Dried Tomatoes Are Fancy
http://www.smoker-cooking.com/smokedriedtomatoes.html

Everything2
Smoked tomatoes
http://everything2.com/title/Smoked%2520tomatoes

Tips for Enjoying Smoke-dried Tomatoes  LarryÂs Smoked Dried Tomatoes
http://www.boggycreekfarm.com/pages/larrys-smoke-dried-tomatoes.php

I just saw a Tyler Florence episode last night on the Cooking Channel. He was at a lady's home in Italy and it looked like tomatoes were in bunches hanging from the ceiling like garlic braids or in mesh nets if I remember correctly--I couldn't tell if still attached to plants or not. She was making a pizza, and she took the tomatoes and broke them by hand as if they were just taken from the garden. They were claimed to be smoked.

I don't know if this is the same episode or not that others have mentioned, but I must say that I have a smoker and have hot smoked sliced tomatoes as well as regularly smoke jalapenos and many other hot pepper varieties to later grind to a powder using a coffee bean grinder or food processor or electric chopper (all depends on amount.)

I have never seen tomatoes smoked that look "normal." These on the show may have been Principe Borghese or however it's spelled, but still clueless as to how this can be possible. I'll crosspost this in Tomatoes forum & Harvest forum too.

Any comments still welcome!

Still working on this! This year I have a pretty good example of them continuing to ripen, long after the plant has been pulled up and hung upside down.