The losses in stock from canning tomatoes amounts to about forty per
cent. This is due to the unbusiness-like attempt to can all kinds—very
large, very small, and wrinkled, which can not be peeled with economy—to
wasteful methods of peeling, and to excessive draining of fruit from
handling in too thick layers. In this waste there is much that has good
food value and which might be worked up into pulp or ketchup stock if
properly done. In order to do this, the tomatoes should be sorted so
that only those which are in perfect condition for canning will go to
the peelers. These should be medium sized, firm, evenly ripened all
over, and free from wrinkles. Such tomatoes can be peeled at the minimum
of expense and loss. The sound tomatoes which are small, excessively
large, wrinkled, or with green butts, can go in with whole tomato stock.
The loss in peeling will then be small and can advantageously be
discarded. If it be decided to use trimmings from the peeling tables,
provision must be made for extra washing, as the ordinary washer removes
little more than the coarse dirt and particles, is not sufficient for
unusual conditions or to remove tightly-adhering material, and,
furthermore, rot must be eliminated before the tomatoes go to the
peelers. The writer has never seen a group of one hundred, or any
number, of peelers who will stop to trim and separate rot from peels and
cores. Trimming can be done better by a few when sorting the tomatoes
than at any subsequent step. If clean skins and cores can be had from
the peeling table, they can be converted into pulp and sold if labeled
properly, “from trimmings.” Whether such waste is suitable for a good
product depends upon how it is handled. For the most part, it has not
been handled as well as it should be.
The finished pulp made from skins and cores is not the same as that from
whole stock. It contains more fiber, remains more or less lumpy, and
lacks the smooth body of whole pulp. The color is not so good, and the
flavor is likely to be somewhat different. The flavor of the seed cells
and that of the fleshy portion of the tomato are different. Pulp made
from each part separately shows marked difference, that from the seed
cells being poor in color, but with the more characteristic fruit
flavor. Tests show that neither part has any true jellying powers, but
that the part from the seed cells gives the quality of smoothness, the
holding together of the particles of solids. Neither gives a first class
pulp alone.