Tomatoes of Pirgi

Here on our island summer finally has arrived and that means every day is sunny, dry and warm or hot. On the one hand that is great weather for relaxing at the beach and going swimming but on the other hand, the dry weather is a challenge for the nature and you can see the mountains changing colour from lush green to brown.

In addition, the danger of forest fires grows and it gets extremely important to prevent them by not having any kind of open fires. Moreover, the lack of rain and thus of water also affects the agriculture. In order to be able to cultivate fruits and veggies over the summer, it is absolutely necessary to assure a sufficient irrigation. However, there are some strategies allowing to reduce the amount of water that would be needed for a juicy fruit. Today I will talk about one specific example: tomatoes. If you ever visited the village Pirgi in the central south of chios island, you probably saw the tomato-bundles hanging from the beautifully decorated houses which are drying in the sun. These tomatoes are not to big and can tolerate the heat and the dry conditions better than bigger ones. Furthermore, they can grow with only little water, even though this leads to fruits with a thick and strong skin and only little of the juicy inner part. To eat the tomatoes like that, for example in a salad is not that tasty, but the solution of the people living in Pirgi is simple: sun-drying the tomatoes completely, and just taking them for sauces and soups, where they get soft through the cooking and can give all their taste to the sauce. The tomatoes hanging from the walls are therefore much more than a pretty decoration, they are a clever way of dealing with the dry climate!