The organic tomato paste was first made in Italy at bulk prices so let us take brief look at the history of tomato paste in Italy.
Once part of every home, today made-to-order is making a comeback thanks to the passion for good food and back to home production: Making tomato puree or tomato puree is a tradition spread throughout the Italian peninsula.
But among the delicious preserves in the pantry is ready-to-serve pesto for flavoring pasta dishes, timbales and other dishes. Silky and velvety texture, sweet and sour flavors, garden aromas and summer memories: tomato puree is a staple in Italian cuisine, indispensable for meat and full-bodied sauces, but also for fish recipes, soups and, of course, pizza.
It is a more or less thick sauce made from different types of tomatoes (for more info: The best tomatoes for pureeing), boiled and pureed until creamy, often garnished with fresh basil leaves.
But before we get to the puree, we need to go back in time to the arrival of the tomato in Europe: a journey that began in Latin America, especially Mexico and Peru, with xitomatl, the Aztec name from which the English word was later derived.
“tomatoes” that were stored in Europe after the discovery of the New World in 1492. According to the 1544 classification of the botanist Séine Pietro Andrea Mattioli, tomatoes were first labeled as inedible until they were first eaten fried in the South Italy.
Between the late 16th and early 17th centuries it was studied by alchemists who believed it had aphrodisiac properties until it became an integral part of the art of southern Europe – England and France above all – from the 18th century onwards .
forward. The peasants of Parma began the practice of canning by placing tomatoes in the sun to dry them before turning them into a sauce. In Italy, this tradition gave rise to a wide network of manufacturing industries. The first was created in Naples, thanks to the entrepreneur Francesco Cirio, who is still one of the most famous names in the big retail trade: he was responsible for the introduction of hermetic food preservation, invented by Nicola Appert in the 18th century.
The distribution of canned tomatoes in Italy is often associated with the big industrial brands. Even the industrial version of tomato paste originates from the province of Parma: its success dates back to the 1950s, when the company Mutti de Montechiarugolo began to market tomato paste in tubes. The difference with puree? Concentration, as the name suggests.
It is a product obtained from heated tomato juice to reduce the water content: the result is a thicker paste with a strong taste. The three versions available differ in the level of sugar concentration, leaving concentrate, double concentration and triple concentration tomato puree.
There are several home-made versions, prepared in different ways according to regional traditions (among the most famous is the Sicilian strattu), which are used to add flavor to soups, minestrone, meat sauces or preparations with a long cooking time, such as stews and casseroles.
A faithful companion in the pantry, pesto genovese is the perfect ingredient for a quick and tasty dinner, to be used directly cold on pasta. Its preparation requires a lot of manual skill and knowledge of tools – a marble mortar and a wooden pestle – but there is no traditional method for making it.
The original progenitor of the recipe is the Roman moretum, a mixture of herbs, pecorino cheese, salt, olive oil and vinegar, although the first written records date from the 19th century, with the volume “La vera cuciniera genovese” by Emanuele Rossi, which states. sauce for the first time. But it is also believed to be the evolution of agliata (aggiada in the Genoese dialect), made with garlic, breadcrumbs, olive oil, wine and vinegar, usually used as a side dish for fish dishes. Recommendations serve perfectly?
Pasta – first trophy and trenet – lasagna, timbales and delicious pies. When we hear someone say the words “Italian cuisine” the two things that come to mind are pasta sauce and pasta. This also conjures up imagery of plump Italian tomatoes. Tomatoes that are made by hand and cooked with care and then used in a recipe that has been passed down through many generations. Well, we have to admit something terrible.
Organic Tomato Paste
Are you stll reading? Good. The glorious organic tomato paste – the staple of Italian pasta sauce – has a much different story to tell and it starts in South America! Wait. What?!
From Peru of all places, tomatoes were first brought to Europe by the Spanish Conquistadors in the mid-1500s. At the time, the mystery fruit was called “tomatl” in Spanish. As far as we know, the first recorded eyewitness account from Italy of what was later called a tomato came from Tuscany in 1548. In that account, the result was surprising compared to an egg.
The Italian name for this new edible item was “pomidoro,” which roughly translates to golden fruit or golden apple. More significantly, tomatoes were considered “too exotic” by most Italians for centuries. Needless to say, his status did not rise quickly. Flash forward more than 200 years and we have an early recipe for Italian tomato sauce with pasta (finally!).
Francesco Leonardi, a Roman chef who lived in the late 1700s created this gift to mankind. He wrote about his Italian tomato sauce in 1790 in the cookbook L’Apicio Moderno. Unbeknownst to him, Francesco had just struck culinary gold.
But, even back in the day, most of the tomato-based Italian pasta sauces we love today didn’t become popular until the 19th century. That’s more than 300 years after Europe introduced the tomato.
Fun fact: the earliest “spaghetti in tomato sauce” recipe ever found dates back to 1844. Historians have theories as to why Italian tomato sauce gained popularity in the 19th and 20th centuries. The best theories are about immigration and the industrial revolution!
New innovations such as the industrialized food canal mean that perishable foods such as tomatoes can be transported long distances and stored longer than ever before. In Italy, there were new developments in the cultivation, processing and export of tomatoes.
This made Italian tomatoes more affordable and widely available for the first time. When thousands of immigrants arrived in new lands, they often longed to go home. We can all agree that familiar foods can provide comfort and a connection to your roots.
This is probably why macaroni and pasta sauce, now old world favorites, can be found on new world dinner plates in such abundance. The rest, as they say, is history. Here it is. A rather unexpected and very glorious story of the beloved tomato. The next time you enjoy a delicious pasta sauce like those from Authentica, take a moment of gratitude.
Because of the well-traveled fruit, it took a long time to become the staple food we know and love today. Italian cuisine tops the list for some of the most popular dishes in the world. There are a number of Italian dishes that you can try, but until your taste buds experience the magic of spaghetti with tomato sauce, you haven’t experienced the best of Italian food.
Almost anyone who tries this amazing Italian dish will always want more. Here’s what you need to know about the origins of your favorite Italian dish. The tomato sauce and spaghetti dish dates back to the 1800s, when locals in Naples, Italy first used it. One fact about tomatoes in Italy is that they were first introduced to Italy by the Spanish between the 16th and 17th centuries.
But before Neapolitans started accepting them, most Italians considered tomatoes poisonous. Therefore, the common use of tomatoes was for decorative purposes. After 1800, tomatoes became more popular and are used in a variety of dishes. In 1837, a recipe for tomatoes and spaghetti was published, making this wonderful product an official Italian dish.
The best tomatoes to make spaghetti with tomato sauce are organic date tomatoes. However, other tomatoes can be used, but the basic rule is that the tomatoes should be fragrant, deep red and ripe. To achieve the best result with the flavor of your tomato sauce, always use our Italian dinner seasoning in the sauce. If you want to make it easy, just take canned tomato sauce and sprinkle our seasoning in it.
Tomato Paste Made In Italy
We can not say for sure that are if a tomato paste is made in Italy it definitely has the highest quality. After years of careful observation and painstaking research, not to mention the difficult but necessary tasting of all her recipes, I can finally share some of my grandmother’s secrets in the kitchen.
I’m sure this is just the beginning because I learn something new every day just by talking to her and listening to her stories and memories. Our time together is so precious! This may sound like inappropriate cooking advice, but it makes a big difference. Being in the kitchen with Grandma is like cooking with the fairy godmother, she cleans everything, efficiently and quickly, with the wave of a magic wand.
Use a pot, soap it, rinse it and let it dry. Using a knife, do the same. This helps you control what’s going on in the kitchen and on the stove, translating mental order into better cooking results. I still have a lot to learn in this aspect, but I am improving every day, especially during the cooking lessons.
Not just any wooden spoon, there will be one for all different preparations, as wood tends to absorb flavors and colors. Grandma keeps her wooden spoons in a jar on her kitchen counter: one for tomato dishes, one for delicate creams and jams, one for meat stews and bean soups, one for risotto. Throw in a few wooden spatulas for good measure. Is there really a difference?
Not only do I want to mess with food traditions and family dogma, but wood has a warmth that any other spatula or silicone stirrer definitely misses. Have you noticed that there is a small burner in the lower right corner of your stove? Yes, this one. Well, this burner isn’t just for coffee, it’s the most important thing.
Use it for meat stews, stewed beans, ragouts, bean soups, Italian pastries and sofrito. You will keep your food from burning, and stirring with a wooden spoon will add to every taste. This is the last secret I discovered and perhaps the one that had the biggest impact on the way I cook. I tried to be clean when I cooked.
I remembered to use a wooden spoon most of the time and cook my recipes on low heat when necessary. But there was often something missing in my papa al pomodoro, in my stewed beans… They lacked depth of flavor. When I asked my grandmother to tell me more about her stews and soups, I noticed that she often mentioned an unsuspecting ingredient, a tablespoon of tomato paste.
Now you should know that since I was born, I saw Grandma and Mom save a few days at the end of August to preserve tomatoes: they prepared jars of tomato paste, tomato sauce and peeled tomatoes for the winter.
We would use them in our Sunday pizza, for a rich meat sauce, or in pasta al pomodoro during the week. I’ve taken for granted that tomato sauce is a family tradition from time to time, picturing my grandmother bottling ruby red tomato sauce for the winter. I thought tomato paste was just a modern invention, a substitute for sauce. That was just my imagination though.
Grandma Marcella told me no, in the past they made tomato paste to preserve tomatoes for the winter, simple pasta came later, after the war, when they learned to do it safely.
They once planted endless rows of tomatoes, for daily use in salads, panzanella or papa al pomodoro, and for tomato puree. Although the tomatoes that were to be used would normally be watered daily, they would reduce the water for the other plants so that there would be tomatoes that are a flavor concentrate, with less water.
