Pasta al Pomodoro

Italy before the tomato

It is hard to picture Italian food without tomatoes, yet for most of its history Italy had none. Tomatoes were domesticated in the Americas and reached Europe only after Spanish contact with Mexico in the 1500s. An Italian herbalist described them in the mid-1500s and called them pomi d'oro, golden apples, probably because the first ones seen were yellow. That name lives on as pomodoro.

Before then, Italians dressed pasta with butter, cheese, spices, sugar and broth. Many people were suspicious of the new fruit, a relative of nightshade, and grew it as a curiosity.

How the sauce took over

Southern Italy, especially around Naples, warmed to tomatoes first. A Neapolitan cookbook from the 1690s included a tomato sauce described as Spanish style. By the 1800s, Neapolitan cooks were tossing pasta with tomatoes, and street vendors sold plates of macaroni to eat with your hands. When millions of southern Italians emigrated in the late 1800s and early 1900s, tomato pasta traveled with them.

Few ingredients, no hiding

Pasta al pomodoro has almost nothing to it: good tomatoes, olive oil, garlic or onion, salt and fresh basil. That is why technique matters. Use ripe tomatoes in summer and good canned whole plum tomatoes, such as San Marzano, the rest of the year. Cook the sauce briefly so it stays bright, and finish the pasta in the pan with a splash of its starchy water so the sauce clings.

Different regions developed their own tomato sauces. In Naples, cooks simmered sauces with garlic and olive oil, while further north butter and onion often led the way. Canning made a huge difference: by the late 1800s, factories around Naples and Parma were preserving tomatoes, so the sauce could be made all year. The San Marzano plum tomato, grown in volcanic soil near Mount Vesuvius, became the most famous variety and now carries protected status in Italy.

How Italians serve it

In Italy it is a primo, a first course, served in modest portions before a meat or fish course. Spaghetti is classic, though short shapes work too. A little grated Parmigiano or pecorino is welcome, but the star should be the tomato. Tear the basil at the last moment.

← Vietnamese PhoPaella Valenciana →