LaValle DOP vs LaValle vs Alta Cucina vs Francesca

[Wallman]

I'm conducting a subjective, non-scientific taste  test of these 4 tomatoes.  The LaValles and the Francesca are imported from Italy while the Alta Cucina contains California tomatoes.  All of the tomatoes looked great in the can although both LaValles looked a bit thinner.

Based on an initial taste of each can (after deseeding, hand crushing and a quick hit from a stick blender) I'd put the LaValles at the top. In fact, I could hardly distinguish the difference between the DOP and non-DOP tomatoes.  The Alta Cucinas were good and seemed a bit thicker, but were more salty.  Again, I liked the flavor, but wouldn't add any salt to these at all. The Francescas trailed the pack, with a bland, watery flavor.

Given the LaValle non-DOPs are 36% less expensive per ounce (based Penn Mac prices), I'd pick those over the others. I was pulling for the DOPs (I just bought a case of 'em), but the regular LaValle's are better deal.

Later I'm going to make pizzas with each sauce to see how they compare after baking.

[Jackie Tran]

Thanks for posting your findings Wallman.

[Wallman]

After baking, on NY style dough made with unbeached, unbromated GM All trumps flour, the ranking stayed basically the same.  Both the LaValles tasted the best, but the Alta Cucina was close behind. The saltiness diminished with baking (adding cheese and dough probably helped).  The Francesca continued to rank 4th.  I must say, this is all highly subjective and my research methods weren't very consistent. I did introduce a lot of independent variables because I was baking the pies on different racks in my oven and the temps certainly varied between the 1st and 4th pie. Plus I was fooling around with using the bake feature, convection roast, and convection bake on my oven.  And, I should have made marinara pizzas instead of ones with cheese to really evaluate the sauce.

However, I would still recommend the LaValles and Alta Cucinas over the Francescas.  My 9 year old daughter decared the DOP LaValles the best (but I think she also liked the green can!).  Here are some pics for what it's worth. I didn't get a picture of the first pie made with the DOC LaValles.

[chickenparm]

This one looked to be very interesting as well.