# Sauce on top, the Italian-American way



## stephen129 (May 19, 2020)

I was wondering how Italian-Americans came to sauce pasta the way they do, i.e put cooked pasta on the plate and then dump sauce on top. Whereas in Italy they would mix the sauce and the pasta with a bit of starchy pasta water. 

I have travelled all around Italy and have never been given a plate of pasta with sauce on top, it's always mixed. So my question is, how did this tradition come about in New York and other places that Italians emigrated to in the United States? Surely they would have just done what they did back in Italy and combine the sauce with the pasta.


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## ian (May 19, 2020)

Laziness? It’s a lot easier. If you’re not a food person, that’s what you do. Seems pretty understandable to me, if unfortunate.


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## rickbern (May 19, 2020)

I think it’s because cheap meat in the US changed sauces into tomato based meat stews that were not so conducive to tossing.

lots of web results, this one has pretty pictures









The Illustrated History of Italian-American Food


How spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, and red sauce became American staples.




firstwefeast.com


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## spaceconvoy (May 19, 2020)

No clue really, but I'm happy to throw out my half-baked ideas. I can confirm this is how my grandmother did it, but I never understood why. Maybe it was growing up during the great depression? Instead of letting the pasta soak up all that sauce, adding it later could stretch out a smaller amount. Probably a minimal difference tho... Another thought - culture cuts both ways. My grandparents' mother-tongue was Italian, but they only spoke English in the house on purpose so my mom's generation would be more assimilated. Maybe saucing a plate of cooked pasta seemed more American to them, in a good way?

edit: @ian definitely not laziness, in my family at least. My grandmother was obsessed with food and would spend a half-day making her special eggplant parmesan recipe. Multiple-course Sunday dinners after church every week, seven fish on Christmas eve, which included soaking the baccala in the bathtub overnight, etc, etc... She had a reason for everything, and sauced pasta like this on purpose. Never got a chance to ask her why though.


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## ian (May 19, 2020)

.


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## Runner_up (May 19, 2020)

I grew up in an "italian-american" household and we never, _ever_, put sauce on plain pasta. I always figured this was simply done by folks who don't know any better (most americans when it comes to cooking).


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## marc4pt0 (May 19, 2020)

It’s how my wife likes it, and how my 2 girls are starting to want it. But I ignore it and still toss pasta in whatever sauce I’m making. 
I think the idea of kids being fed plain or buttered pasta from the early ages ruins life. The kids grow up with this instilled comfort of plain pasta and the ability to choose when to touch said pasta to the sauce. It’s terrible.


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## ian (May 19, 2020)

marc4pt0 said:


> It’s how my wife likes it, and how my 2 girls are starting to want it. But I ignore it and still toss pasta in whatever sauce I’m making.
> I think the idea of kids being fed plain or buttered pasta from the early ages ruins life. The kids grow up with this instilled comfort of plain pasta and the ability to choose when to touch said pasta to the sauce. It’s terrible.



This is a perpetual argument in my house. My 5 yr old will eat basically nothing but plain starches and fruit. On my own, I’d just serve him whatever for dinner (within reason) and let him deal with it. My wife is all about no-conflict meals, though, so we don’t do that...


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## Xenif (May 19, 2020)

This has been a constant point of argument between my mother and I for as long as I can remember. My mother dumps huge amount of sauce on top with a healthy squirt of ketchup, while I always do it with pasta in sauce, control sauce with pasta water. 30 years and I dont think either of us will yield anytime soon


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## erickso1 (May 19, 2020)

I grew up with the sauce on top. Never knew any better. Watched Sopranos and started mixing the sauce into the noodles with some pasta water. Now, me and my boys get our sauce and noodles mixed, and my partner gets her noodles with sauce on the top on the side.


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## boomchakabowwow (May 19, 2020)

i do a hybrid. i "dress"the pasta with a few scoops of sauce. i try to get just juice, and not so much meat. it does two things. keeps the pasta greased up with flavor and it wont stick together. like a primer. then i plate the pasta with a twirl of the noodles and then put scooped sauce on top...in the nest of noodles. this is long noodles.

short noodles? everyone in the pool! (makes for a way better food photo anyways)


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## spaceconvoy (May 19, 2020)

remembering a few details.. if she made ravioli or gnocchi, my grandma would add a little sauce before serving, but you'd still add most of the sauce to your plate. Regular boxed pasta was served plain from a big bowl mixed with a splash of olive oil. Tomato sauce was poured from a gravy boat on the side. For some reason she never made spaghetti or other long thin noodles.

I think the logic was, if you start with antipasti and don't immediately eat the pasta, pre-saucing makes it soggy. But some pastas, like wide flat ravioli or soft homemade gnocchi, need a bit of sauce for lubrication or they'll stick together.


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## M1k3 (May 19, 2020)

ian said:


> This is a perpetual argument in my house. My 5 yr old will eat basically nothing but plain starches and fruit. On my own, I’d just serve him whatever for dinner (within reason) and let him deal with it. My wife is all about no-conflict meals, though, so we don’t do that...


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## ptolemy (May 19, 2020)

I don't know but I never did it nor will I do it. I see same with rice... I never do that nor would want to. Plain, it's just starch


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## TSF415 (May 19, 2020)

I’m a first generation Italian American and I am extremely offended by this post. I didn’t even read the replies before rushing to the bottom to post that I think you deserve to get whooped with a wooden spoon.


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## esoo (May 19, 2020)

My finacee considers the way I eat spaghetti offensive: I sauce on top, put parm on top, I *cut* my pasta so the sauce/spaghetti mix, add more parm and eat. Sometimes on top of garlic bread to make a pasta sandwich. Apparently I'm a monster.


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## WildBoar (May 19, 2020)

I grew up with tomato-sauce-on-top, and both sides of my family are eyetalian. The first time I had pasta tossed in/ finished cooking in sauce while on a trip to Italy I thought the sauce dried out because we arrived late and the pasta had been sitting. In my family, not only did we put the tomato sauce on top of the bowl of pasta, we also served additional tomato sauce on the side so it could be poured overtop your plate of spaghetti at the table. I don't think the traditional Italian-American 'spaghetti with tomato sauce' suffers much from this because you can easily mix it up on your plate (plus the spaghetti was usually rinsed off so it would not stick together), but it does not work well for most other types of sauces. But there were no other kinds of sauces beside tomato sauce when I was growing up.

Three out of my 4 grandparents were born in southern or central Italy. They all seemed fine with this.


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## gregfisk (May 19, 2020)

This is slightly off topic because it’s a question but how do chefs make pomodoro so the dry sauce sticks to the noodles? 

I grew up with sauce on top as well but now I much prefer mixing it in. I’ve been trying for a few years to get pomodoro to be like the good Italian restaurants do it but it just never turns out right.


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## M1k3 (May 19, 2020)

gregfisk said:


> This is slightly off topic because it’s a question but how do chefs make pomodoro so the dry sauce sticks to the noodles?
> 
> I grew up with sauce on top as well but now I much prefer mixing it in. I’ve been trying for a few years to get pomodoro to be like the good Italian restaurants do it but it just never turns out right.


Put the noodles in the sauce, slightly underdone to where you want them, finish cooking noodles in the sauce in the pan with a splash of the starchy pasta water.


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## YumYumSauce (May 19, 2020)

Not Italian. Grew up with the sauce on top and oiling the pasta after boiling. As I got more into cooking I learned tossing it in sauce helps incorporate everything together. I always toss the pasta in sauce and noodle water before serving now. We've always stored them seperatly. I always found it strange when others would make a big batch and just mixing everything together all at once.
I feel like the reasons for some things just got lost or forgotten in the trip across the ocean. I'm sure I do plently of things "wrong" from my background which I try to learn and understand.


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## gregfisk (May 19, 2020)

M1k3 said:


> Put the noodles in the sauce, slightly underdone to where you want them, finish cooking noodles in the sauce in the pan with a splash of the starchy pasta water.


Okay, thanks for the information. It always seems too wet to me though. It’s dry at the restaurants. Maybe my sauce is too wet?


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## valgard (May 19, 2020)

Some stuff I mix in the sauce before serving but when I make a big batch of ragu or something that will yield more than one meal I am lazy and don't use an extra container just to mix the current batch of pasta with a portion of the sauce, instead just put on top and we mix it on our own plates. Doesn't answer the question but it could be one explanation of how it came to be.


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## btbyrd (May 19, 2020)

It should also be remembered that not every person who came to this country from Italy had significant culinary knowledge or food experiences. I think it was Bourdain who noted that many Italian grandmothers truly suck at cooking, and suggested that it was folly to romanticize the old country (or old people of Italian descent) as uniform repositories of fantastic foodways.


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## ian (May 19, 2020)

gregfisk said:


> Okay, thanks for the information. It always seems too wet to me though. It’s dry at the restaurants. Maybe my sauce is too wet?



Yes, or take the pasta out earlier and let it absorb more of the sauce’s moisture. Make sure you’re adding a good sized splash of pasta water, though, since the starch in that is what thickens the sauce and makes it stick to the noodles. I have no idea, maybe 1/4 cup per person? I never measure, so maybe that’s totally off, and usually I transfer the pasta straight to the sauce pot with tongs so that automatically transfers a bunch of pasta water with it. And account for the fact that you’ll add pasta water when you consider the thickness of the sauce.


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## TSF415 (May 19, 2020)

gregfisk said:


> Okay, thanks for the information. It always seems too wet to me though. It’s dry at the restaurants. Maybe my sauce is too wet?



Similar to what Ian said. If the you like the texture of your pasta after it being cooked for 8 mins, than I would cook 6min in water and two mins in sauce. The starch from the should make the sauce stick to the pasta. Also if you add cheese, that's a good time to do so.


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## WildBoar (May 19, 2020)

btbyrd said:


> It should also be remembered that not every person who came to this country from Italy had significant culinary knowledge or food experiences. I think it was Bourdain who noted that many Italian grandmothers truly suck at cooking, and suggested that it was folly to romanticize the old country (or old people of Italian descent) as uniform repositories of fantastic foodways.


Agreed. I think any/ most had a few solid items in their arsenal, but they were no chefs by any means. And forget about ever trying to add more flavor/ improve something they knew how to make -- it would never be a possibility. On a side note, my wife has a pretty broad range of dishes she makes that are good. But any thought of improving upon them is met with a brick wall. She will not -- ever -- veer from whatever recipe her mom recited to her over the phone while pulling quantities, etc. out of here buttocks region (it's not like the mother had this stuff down as set recipes... She does her best to guess when asked to relay a recipe with very little advanced notice) 

To me nothing is sacred, as whatever we consider 'classic' evolved to that recipe over time. It was never a constant. But at some point it peaked based on what ingredients were available locally, etc. But any/ everything can be improved upon. The tomato sauce I make is a moving target, as I like to play around with adding other flavors, etc. compared to what my grandparents and my mother traditionally made. And almost universally the ones I make are better then the simpler/ planer sauces they would make/ serve. And I know neither of my grandmothers would be upset about me making the sauce different if they
thought it tasted better (sadly they both died before I reached the point in life where I started playing around with the 'traditional' stuff).


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## M1k3 (May 19, 2020)

gregfisk said:


> Okay, thanks for the information. It always seems too wet to me though. It’s dry at the restaurants. Maybe my sauce is too wet?


Get your sauce consistency just about "there" before adding pasta and the water.


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## gregfisk (May 19, 2020)

TSF415 said:


> Similar to what Ian said. If the you like the texture of your pasta after it being cooked for 8 mins, than I would cook 6min in water and two mins in sauce. The starch from the should make the sauce stick to the pasta. Also if you add cheese, that's a good time to do so.


Thanks guys, I really appreciate you helping me out with this. I do a fair amount of cooking and the pomodoro issue has been bugging me for a long time.

I didn’t have pasta any way but sauce on top until I started going to good restaurants in my early 20s. My Mom and stepmom were pretty lousy cooks. My Mom did the Betty Crocker thing, yah, yuck and my stepmom cooked everything into the dirt big pot style. I don’t think it matters where you came from, some people are just better cooks than others. My sister who was 2 years younger than me would follow any recipe to the T. It didn’t matter that the roast was smoking and turning black in our too hot oven. If the recipe said cook it for 3 hours by God don’t take it out until then, no matter what it looks like.


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## rickbern (May 19, 2020)

Marcella hazan was not a big proponent of using pasta cooking water to thicken the sauce, she disdainfully called it “pasta roux”. One of the few pieces advice from her that I’ve chosen to ignore. 

She is originally from emiglia Romano and she was always a proponent of a butter based tomato sauce with a whisper of onion. 

Worth giving it a try 









Marcella Hazan's Pasta with Simple Tomato and Butter Sauce


Marcella Hazan's Pasta with Simple Tomato and Butter Sauce is a classic Italian pasta dish with a smooth, velvety sauce and an incredibly rich flavor.




www.marilenaskitchen.com


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## ian (May 19, 2020)

I have dreams to this day about the tomato pastas I would make myself as a postdoc 10 years ago. I was living alone, dating lots, hitting up all the amazing New Haven, CT clubs (this is half tongue in cheek, but only half), and during the summer I’d bike down to the quite excellent farmers market, drop like $60 on these awesome tomatoes, and treat myself (and perhaps my companion of the moment) to dried spaghetti with the best, simplest pasta with tomato sauce ever. I can’t remember exactly how I cooked it nowadays, since I have lost the technique in a fog of romance, from which it can never be fully extracted. However, I imagine it was something more or less like this:

Get amazing tomatoes (I was using whatever big luscious ones they had at the farmers market. Think brandywines or green zebras or whatever instead of romas.)
Peel them (or don’t, depending on the tomato),
Coarsely dice and salt them, put them in a strainer over a bowl.
Boil some water, salt it.
Put a pan on medium low heat or whatever.
throw the pasta into the water.
put some olive oil in the warming pan and throw in some minced garlic. Let it cook gently for a couple minutes, and don’t let it color.
throw the tomatoes in the pan (reserve the juice for now)
cook the tomatoes for just a couple minutes till they break down a bit, which shouldn’t take long if they’ve been salted and peeled, and if they’re fancy soft heirloom ****ers.
take the pasta out of the water with tongs and throw into the pan. There should hopefully be enough starch clinging to the noodles to thicken the sauce slightly. But don’t overdo it. The sauce should already be somewhat thick because you strained out the excess juice. Add some juice if it’s too thick.
throw in a knob of butter and a bunch of herbs. I like thyme, basil, oregano and such. use, like, a lot of herbs. Perhaps 1 or 2 ****tons, to taste.
stir rapidly with the tongs. add a little cheese if you like (don’t add a really strong tasting parmesan. If you have a milder one, that’s good, or pecorino or something)
put it on a plate
add more cheese
eat, and drink wine
take your companion(s) to bed
wake up in the morning before they get up, and make them breakfast potatoes.
repeat


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## M1k3 (May 19, 2020)

ian said:


> I have dreams to this day about the tomato pastas I would make myself as a postdoc 10 years ago. I was living alone, dating lots, hitting up all the amazing New Haven, CT clubs (this is half tongue in cheek, but only half), and during the summer I’d bike down to the quite excellent farmers market, drop like $60 on these awesome tomatoes, and treat myself (and perhaps my companion of the moment) to dried spaghetti with the best, simplest pasta with tomato sauce ever. I can’t remember exactly how I cooked it nowadays, since I have lost the technique in a fog of romance, from which it can never be fully extracted. However, I imagine it was something more or less like this:
> 
> Get amazing tomatoes (I was using whatever big luscious ones they had at the farmers market. Think brandywines or green zebras or whatever instead of romas.)
> Peel them (or don’t, depending on the tomato),
> ...


Can you turn this into an algorithm or something?


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## TSF415 (May 19, 2020)

rickbern said:


> Marcella hazan was not a big proponent of using pasta cooking water to thicken the sauce, she disdainfully called it “pasta roux”. One of the few pieces advice from her that I’ve chosen to ignore.
> 
> She is originally from emiglia Romano and she was always a proponent of a butter based tomato sauce with a whisper of onion.
> 
> ...



That’s another. Butter........ My family is from southern Italy and the only thing my mom or aunts would us butter for was cookies. Than in restaurants I work with chefs that were all mostly from northern Italy and those guys put butter in everything. 

I use butter here and there now. In my bolognese or other pastas when I pick them up but there are a few I am anti butter about and pomodoro is one.


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## ian (May 19, 2020)

M1k3 said:


> Can you turn this into an algorithm or something?



You tell me which programming language you can compile and send me some documentation for your bodily API, and I’ll write you the relevant code.


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## M1k3 (May 19, 2020)

ian said:


> You tell me which programming language you can compile and send me some documentation for your bodily API, and I’ll write you the relevant code.


Ccook++, or do you prefer Forcook? Ccook.net? Or you a bare bones kind and prefer Cook Language? Let me find that documentation. Might be behind the fryer..


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## ian (May 20, 2020)

In honor of this thread, here’s lunch.


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## tomsch (May 20, 2020)

I grew up with sauce on the top but that was more because that's the way my dad wanted it. Now I mix the pasta with the sauce and a little pasta water. When I make a big batch of sauce I cook the sauce in one pot, pasta in another, reserve some pasta water, then spoon in sauce and water into the pasta pot until the ratio is perfect. I also under cook the pasta by 1-2mins so they can cook for a little while to let the flavor blend. The extra sauce either goes into the refrigerator or the freezer depending on how much I made.


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## gregfisk (May 20, 2020)

I grow my own tomatoes which is probably why the sauce I make is so wet at the beginning. One of the issues I have noticed is that the sauce from fresh tomatoes always looks anemic because it’s very light pink. Don’t really know what to do about it though. Maybe if I left on the skins?


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## TSF415 (May 20, 2020)

gregfisk said:


> I grow my own tomatoes which is probably why the sauce I make is so wet at the beginning. One of the issues I have noticed is that the sauce from fresh tomatoes always looks anemic because it’s very light pink. Don’t really know what to do about it though. Maybe if I left on the skins?



Do you remove the juice first? To start from fresh tomatoes and get a fully cooked sauce can be a bit of a process. 

The longer you cook the sauce the thicker it'll get. I'd imagine to get the right consistency from fresh tomatoes with a high water content would take about 3-4 hours.


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## gregfisk (May 20, 2020)

TSF415 said:


> Do you remove the juice first? To start from fresh tomatoes and get a fully cooked sauce can be a bit of a process.
> 
> The longer you cook the sauce the thicker it'll get. I'd imagine to get the right consistency from fresh tomatoes with a high water content would take about 3-4 hours.


I see the guys on the cooking shows cutting up tomatoes and in a few minutes they have their sauce. I end up cooking them for hours and the sauce is still pink and not very pretty.


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## TSF415 (May 20, 2020)

You can make a fresh tomato sauce in a few minutes which I think is the way to go with tomatoes you grow. But then it is only a few minutes. You still want the water content to be inside the tomato. A little olive oil, some garlic, your tomatoes, then add a little pasta water, a little cheese, toss the pasta, throw in a little basil, maybe a little ricotta and you got yourself an absolutely delicious dish.


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## WildBoar (May 20, 2020)

A fresh tomato sauce is usually diced tomatoes, and should only be cooked for a few minutes. But a real 'tomato sauce' usually is simmered for hours to get a thick sauce, and will be more of a pulpy consistency than actual tomato chunks. A fresh tomato sauce using diced tomatoes can be very tasty. And I will argue to quality of tomatoes needs to be high in order to get a good sauce. But with a long-simmered sauce you can still get something very tasty even if the tomatoes are mediocre.


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## ian (May 20, 2020)

WildBoar said:


> A fresh tomato sauce is usually diced tomatoes, and should only be cooked for a few minutes. But a real 'tomato sauce' usually is simmered for hours to get a thick sauce, and will be more of a pulpy consistency than actual tomato chunks. A fresh tomato sauce using diced tomatoes can be very tasty. And I will argue to quality of tomatoes needs to be high in order to get a good sauce. But with a long-simmered sauce you can still get something very tasty even if the tomatoes are mediocre.





TSF415 said:


> You can make a fresh tomato sauce in a few minutes which I think is the way to go with tomatoes you grow. But then it is only a few minutes. You still want the water content to be inside the tomato. A little olive oil, some garlic, your tomatoes, then add a little pasta water, a little cheese, toss the pasta, throw in a little basil, maybe a little ricotta and you got yourself an absolutely delicious dish.



How much do y'all cook the tomatoes? If the tomatoes are soft heirlooms and you want the water to still be in the tomatoes, I feel like you can hardly heat them. Maybe just get them up to temp and then immediately stop. Haven't tried a fresh tomato sauce with romas.... maybe you can heat them more. But if I cook them longer (like 5 min), which I prefer because I like a sauce and not tomato chunks, I often need to remove some of the juice, lest it be too watery. Thoughts?


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## panda (May 20, 2020)

valgard said:


> Some stuff I mix in the sauce before serving but when I make a big batch of ragu or something that will yield more than one meal I am lazy and don't use an extra container just to mix the current batch of pasta with a portion of the sauce, instead just put on top and we mix it on our own plates. Doesn't answer the question but it could be one explanation of how it came to be.


this x2

prefer canned san marzano over fresh tomato, and definitely finish with butter. buttah make it mo bettah.
on the rare occurance i do use fresh tomato, it's usually over ripened cherry tomatoes just to use it up instead of throwing it out. halve them and broil first.


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## panda (May 20, 2020)

ian said:


> How much do y'all cook the tomatoes? If the tomatoes are soft heirlooms and you want the water to still be in the tomatoes, I feel like you can hardly heat them. Maybe just get them up to temp and then immediately stop. Haven't tried a fresh tomato sauce with romas.... maybe you can heat them more. But if I cook them longer (like 5 min), which I prefer because I like a sauce and not tomato chunks, I often need to remove some of the juice, lest it be too watery. Thoughts?


i think it's a bit of a waste to cook heirloom tomatoes, theyre best eaten raw. my favorite fresh tomatoes are campari though.


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## ian (May 20, 2020)

panda said:


> on the rare occurance i do use fresh tomato, it's usually over ripened cherry tomatoes just to use it up instead of throwing it out. halve them and broil first.



Yea, I do this a lot too.

Actually, another good way is half-dried tomatoes. Like, salt them and put them in a warm place (e.g. 120ish degree oven or something?) and then leave them for a while. I do this with cherries a lot, but I imagine it'd be pretty good with diced big tomatoes too. Have to try sometime.



panda said:


> prefer canned san marzano over fresh tomato



Heathen. Although canned can be pretty good.



panda said:


> i think it's a bit of a waste to cook heirloom tomatoes, theyre best eaten raw. my favorite fresh tomatoes are campari though.



Fair enough, but my most memorable sauces were from heirloom.


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## panda (May 20, 2020)

the oven dry thing i do with romas that are too gross to eat raw, lol and incorporate it into other dishes.


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## TSF415 (May 20, 2020)

panda said:


> this x2
> 
> prefer canned san marzano over fresh tomato, and definitely finish with butter. buttah make it mo bettah.
> on the rare occurance i do use fresh tomato, it's usually over ripened cherry tomatoes just to use it up instead of throwing it out. halve them and broil first.



You had me til butter


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## TSF415 (May 20, 2020)

I use Alta Cucina tomatoes which are California grown San Mariano style. 

Only time i would make sauce from fresh tomatoes is when my mom would lock us in a 100degree garage and make us process a truck load of tomatoes and jar up sauce to divide between families.


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## ian (May 20, 2020)

TSF415 said:


> You had me til butter



Seriously. I prefer half and half.


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## jacko9 (May 20, 2020)

*We canned tomatoes when they were $1 per bushel *


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## gregfisk (May 20, 2020)

I grow heirloom tomatoes of several varieties. My favorites are Black Krim “Russian”, Momotoros “Japanese” and Brandywine “US. What I’ve learned is that Roma’s have a lot less moisture in them which is probably why they are used to make tomato sauce. They also don’t taste that great compared to the other tomatoes I mentioned. For cherry tomatoes I like Sungold or Isis, both are very sweet.


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## HRC_64 (May 21, 2020)

You can an authentic version of fresh tomato sauce (see, eg frutti di mare) by following the directions for aglio e olio and adding a dice of roma tomatoes.

NB that this is a "sleight of hand" substitution...it will yield the same look and overall 'effect' in many ways. Its also very fast, simple, and cheap to do.

Use good ingredients and cook the pasta with some bite.

Using roma shape / san marzano etc is preferable for certain things, I think the discussion about heirlooms etc is a red herring. 

Its more important to use good ingredients in general in a simple dish.


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## Chuckles (May 21, 2020)

I worked with a chef from Bergamo and he would toss the pasta with butter before adding it to the sauce. I prefer quality olive oil over butter for fresh quick cooked tomato sauces.

For a saucy texture I would use San Marzano. If you need that fresh edge use both fresh and canned. Not all canned tomatoes are of the same quality. Cento is a pretty solid grocery store brand. 

Even my young kids will notice domestic parm and request it be left out if it is all that is available. Use the good stuff only.


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## panda (May 21, 2020)

Chuckles said:


> I worked with a chef from Bergamo and he would toss the pasta with butter before adding it to the sauce. I prefer quality olive oil over butter for fresh quick cooked tomato sauces.
> 
> For a saucy texture I would use San Marzano. If you need that fresh edge use both fresh and canned. Not all canned tomatoes are of the same quality. Cento is a pretty solid grocery store brand.
> 
> Even my young kids will notice domestic parm and request it be left out if it is all that is available. Use the good stuff only.


I never liked parmesan until I tried the good stuff which was only once I started working at a luxury resort.


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## spaceconvoy (May 21, 2020)

If you can find them, Alessi is my current favorite supermarket brand of canned tomato here in central Florida. But brands are irrelevant, and will vary by location. Look for any san marzanos packed in their own juices (NO tomato puree!) and without calcium chloride.


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## gregfisk (May 21, 2020)

spaceconvoy said:


> If you can find them, Alessi is my current favorite supermarket brand of canned tomato here in central Florida. But brands are irrelevant, and will vary by location. Look for any san marzanos packed in their own juices (NO tomato puree!) and without calcium chloride.


We buy San marzanos this way at Restaurant Depot, don’t recall what the brand is though. They are whole peeled in their own juices with a basil leaf thrown in. We were lucky enough to have a friend who managed the place and got us a membership. I’m not in the restaurant business but sure like going there.


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## gregfisk (May 21, 2020)

HRC_64 said:


> You can an authentic version of fresh tomato sauce (see, eg frutti di mare) by following the directions for aglio e olio and adding a dice of roma tomatoes.
> 
> NB that this is a "sleight of hand" substitution...it will yield the same look and overall 'effect' in many ways. Its also very fast, simple, and cheap to do.
> 
> ...


Why do you think Roma type tomato’s are preferred for making pasta? They are certainly meatier than heirloom tomatoes but they sure don’t taste as good when eating them raw.


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## rickbern (May 21, 2020)

gregfisk said:


> Why do you think Roma type tomato’s are preferred for making pasta? They are certainly meatier than heirloom tomatoes but they sure don’t taste as good when eating them raw.


Here's a pretty good explanation of the differences









What’s the Difference Between Heirloom, Beefsteak, Plum, Cherry, and Grape Tomatoes?


And one more question: Why are grocery store tomatoes so bad?




www.eater.com





And nuances of sauce tomatoes:









The Best Tomatoes for Making Tomato Sauce


You can make tomato sauce out of any tomato variety, but if you want delicious sauce, use a paste tomato. Discover the nine best paste tomatoes.




www.thespruceeats.com


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## ian (May 21, 2020)

I'd argue those references indicate why it's _easier _to make sauce from romas (etc) than heirlooms, namely the lower water content. With care and proper handling, heirlooms can make a great sauce. It's true it's not economical to use them in that way, but sometimes I want to do it anyway! Come on people, allow me to make a $25 pasta sauce if I want to.

I know this thread isn't about chicken stock, but sometimes I like to make my stock by sauteeing the vegetables in the fat from rendered iberico ham, then adding a few handfuls of store bought morels and chanterelles that I blacken in a cast iron pan. I then filter the broth (which I cook for 2 days) through a few layers of cheesecloth that I've died yellow with handfuls of saffron --- I really like yellow in my kitchen, and nothing else has quite the right shade. The walls are painted in the same color. The little flecks of red/golf left over in the paint are quite striking.


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## gregfisk (May 21, 2020)

This article rings true to my experience. Romas are a lot meatier and don’t have nearly the water content of my other tomatoes I grow. I’ve grown them several times now but only use them for sauce. They don’t taste good fresh in my opinion.


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## HRC_64 (May 21, 2020)

gregfisk said:


> Why do you think Roma type tomato’s are preferred for making pasta? They are certainly meatier than heirloom tomatoes but they sure don’t taste as good when eating them raw.



Roma/style (talking cultivar) in general are better handling off the vine (more durable), and for culinary uses... has a different ratio of peel to pitch and seeds to flesh etc. Just like why a kirby type cucumber is sometimes preferred vs regular size.

FWIW, you can buy or grow heirloom varietals of roma/san marzano etc.


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## The Edge (May 21, 2020)

I grew up with some second cousins/aunts that married into Italian families. When they did pasta, they never mixed the pasta with the sauce before serving. Though, the reason as I understood it, was that they were serving family style, and the noodles would have overcooked left on the table. To keep from sticking in the bowl, they would use olive oil (I know the oil prevents sauce from absorbing). They would never cook just enough pasta, but would always make more than necessary. Not mixing allowed them to save the extra pasta without it becoming mush. I cook my pasta with sauce now, as I prefer it that way. If I do a large batch of sauce, I still mix, but I add the sauce to the pasta boiling pot, and just have to freeze the sauce. Yeah, I know, then I need to boil pasta if I want to have a meal, but boiling pasta isn't the hardest thing.

I tend to make my sauce from the best available ingredients I can find at the time. If it's summer, and I find great tomatoes, I'll use them. If it's winter, and the only tomatoes are hot house, I'll go with canned (as they were picked at peak freshness, and preserved). As for heirlooms, there are varieties that do better cooked than eaten raw (the Speckled Roman comes to mind off the top of my head). How long I cook the tomatoes depends on what I want the end product to taste like. This depends on how the ingredients taste fresh. It's all a balancing act with the flavors, and how complicated I want to make it.


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## HRC_64 (May 21, 2020)

(cont).

Since you are taking a very sensitive dish -- aglio e olio is very fragile with cold-infused garlic into true extra virgin olive oil-- its importantt that your tomatoes can flash cook. 

The key ot the dish is not overheating the cold infused garlic and extra viring olive oil. You want a de-seeded, fleshy tomato that won't shed a ton of water when it hits the pan.


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## gregfisk (May 21, 2020)

HRC_64 said:


> (cont).
> 
> Since you are taking a very sensitive dish -- aglio e olio is very fragile with cold-infused garlic into true extra virgin olive oil-- its importantt that your tomatoes can flash cook.
> 
> The key ot the dish is not overheating the cold infused garlic and extra viring olive oil. You want a de-seeded, fleshy tomato that won't shed a ton of water when it hits the pan.


Thank you for this, what you are saying makes good sense and I appreciate your experience. I have grown several of the available roma type tomatoes including San marzanos in the last 15 years, San marzanos being my favorite. They work well for cooking but I would never grow them just to eat them. All of the other tomatoes I’ve grown are better eating in every regard.


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