The bright red fruit of Tomato is one of the most widely used ingredients in almost every cuisine around the world. Being high in moisture, tomatoes are prone to go bad faster as compared to most produce. Over the past few centuries, as natural preservation methods have improved, people found out that the best way to use tomatoes and make sure they last a long time was by crushing them into a pulp along with some salt. With a few more spices and herbs, this tomato paste can turn into a flavourful tomato sauce perfect for tossing with pasta or cooking chicken breast.
The First Tomato Sauce
Tomatoes originated in the Americas and were unknown to the Old World until the Columbian Exchange in the late 15th century. Among the many plants native to America, there were also the spicy chilli peppers prized by the natives for their invigorating taste. However, the skin and seeds of chillis are not easy to digest on their own and the only acidic ingredient that they knew which could soften the chilli was the tomato. When explorers saw the natives using chillies, they noted that they usually made a paste out of the chillis along with tomatoes and other spices and used it to season everything they ate. The natives also used the paste for medicinal practices leading the explorers to believe that tomato is a poisonous fruit due to its resemblance to nightshade. However, this could be the first-ever use of tomatoes as a sauce and was written about by Bernardino de Sahagún, a Spanish friar who had found this chilli and tomato sauce on sale in the markets of Tenochtitlan in Mexico.
Marinara Sauce
While Europe took time to adapt to using tomatoes in the kitchen, Italians were the first to experiment with the fruit. Tomato sauce was first mentioned in the Italian cookbook Lo Scalco alla Moderna, written by Italian chef Antonio Latini in 1692. The recipe is most likely to have been developed in the Southern region of Naples or Sicily which had a lot of naval trade and favourable weather for tomato gardens. The tomato sauce was known as Marinara which roughly translates to “sailor style”. It was given the name Marinara not because it had any seafood in it but because it was the favourite staple of Italian merchants during long sea voyages.
Tomatoes have high moisture and low shelf life and the best way to preserve them is to crush them into a pulp with salt to prevent microbial growth. This proved a profitable food supply as something more flavourful than dry bread and long-lasting than meat. However, the tomato paste grew slightly more acidic or sour over time. The merchants found out that crushing a few leaves of basil kept the sauce aromatic and prevented the sharp sourness when stored for a long time. The paste eventually evolved into a light sauce made with San Marzano tomatoes, basil, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper, perfect to pair with Spaghetti or on a pizza.
Italian Tomato Sauces
The Marinara sauce became an inspiration for many regional tomato sauces in Italy to pair with pasta or meat such as the spicy Arrabiatta with crushed red pepper flakes or the Puttanesca with a savoury flavour from anchovy fillets, olives and capers. The Amatriciana sauce features chopped guanciale which is a cured cut of pork cheek and the Bolognese is a rich meat sauce made with mirepoix, ground beef, tomatoes, wine and herbs.
Sauce de Tomate
After the Italians popularised the use of Tomatoes, the French were quick to adapt and made Tomato sauce one of the five mother sauces in French cooking. The traditional French recipe includes tomato concasse which means finely diced tomato that has been peeled and seeded along with tomato puree, mirepoix, herbs and spices. It is flavoured with pork and thickened with roux, a cooked mixture of flour and butter.
It is most commonly used as a base for stewed dishes in southern classical French cooking such as the Boeuf Bourguignon and Ratatouille.
Salsa Roja
Mexican cuisine is known to be spicy with a generous use of chillies and similar to their ancestors, the Mexicans use a sauce made of tomatoes and chillies as a base for most of their dishes. The Salsa Roja is a spicy red sauce that is usually made of crushed tomatoes and chillies along with onion, garlic, salt and pepper. It is crushed in a traditional stone mortar and pestle known as the Molcajete. The ingredients are either crushed raw or after stewing or roasting on an iron griddle. Stewing usually results in a milder sauce while roasting intensifies the flavour. Salsa Roja is the base for most Mexican stewed dishes including Enchiladas and Birria. It can even be used as a spicy dip with fries or snacks.
