I don't know how you resolved your citric acid vs. no citric acid dilemma, but my suggestion is to just buy some and keep it dry in a jar, and use it whenever you are canning tomatoes or tomato juice because it has no taste when added in small quantities. It does provide a margin of safety, is really cheap, will last a long time if you buy 8 ounces or a pound, and it has no shelf life if you keep it dry. Also, if you have some over-ripe fruit to can or over-ripe fruit for jam making, you can add a little citric acid to give the fruit a little "bite". It is what they used in children's Gummy Bears and all such sweet sour candies to give them that tart taste. Del Monte even adds citric acid to canned grapefruit sections - a fruit you may not think could benefit from citric acid. Certain cheese calls for citric acid to acidify milk products. So it does have multiple uses. Just my thoughts, Jim in So Calif

Last year I grew italian heriloom. I know its not a true paste tomato, but it was grown in Italy where they make a lot of tomato sauces. I found it was a good slicer eating fresh because it was almost the best tasting tomato in my garden, but also meaty enough to make a good sauce. It was fairly productive and is going to be a staple in my garden. Taste wise it was about 3rd out of about 35 varieties. Thats saying alot because I choose most of my varieties based on their taste reputation. I also grew san marzano, amish paste. San marzano I thought was too soft and spoiled to easily for my uses, though it was VERY productive. My amish paste was not planted in the best of locations in my garden (a somewhat shaded area) but it had fair production of tomatoes smaller than usually proclaimed for this variety. It was middle of the pack for me on taste (possibly because of less sun). I am going to try it again in a more sunny location because I believe I really did not give it a fair shake. It has a good reputation locally here in Utah on taste, productivity, etc.

Keep asking your grocer for it. I asked for it and now they carry it in rural Iowa! Love using it. It adds an extra tomato punch to things, and you don't waste. I used to freeze my leftover paste from the can - I put 1 table spoon tabs on parchement pan and froze, then tossed in a zippy bag, but this is so much easier. I use it in Spanish Rice - just need a tablespoon or two.

It's something new I found and I have so many hot peppers to do something with. It's thin, and fairly aggressively flavored with other things, onion, garlic, vinegar, carrots, etc, supposed to be a Sriracha type sauce. I hate to waste the last of my vine ripe tomatoes on a sauce where I could get away with a canned product. The can lists the only ingredient as Tomatoes, so I would think that I could thin it down and have it be OK. I may just experiment with it and see what I can come up with. If it's any good, I'll post a recipe. Thanks for the advice! Steve