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Pomodoro
Tomato
Appears in
By Antonio Carluccio and Priscilla Carluccio
Published 1997
This vegetable fruit is one of the most versatile and important of foods, and forms the backbone of much of Italian cooking. It can be used for salads, sauces and pickles, it can be preserved, dried, reduced to a pulp or paste and even used as a drink or to make jam.
Originally from Mexico, the tomato was brought back by explorers and made its first appearance in Europe in the second half of the 16th century. For a long time it was considered to be a curiosity, used more as an ornament rather than in the kitchen. In Italy, the first appearance of the tomato in cooking was recorded in a book by Vincenzo Corrado (1765), Cuoco Galante (The Gallant Cook), in which he used tomatoes in sauces, for stuffing and frying. From that moment on, however, the tomato was taken to the Italian heart.