Saucery

[desperance]

Heh, this is interesting. So here I am making what I call a bolognese sauce, viz that take on Italian cooking that has become a British staple; but in California I find that what I am making is spaghetti sauce, viz that take on Italian cooking that has become an American staple. These staples, needless to say, are not identical with each other, let alone with their source*.

So I was tasting cheerfully and thinking "this is coming along quite nicely", only then I thought "I bet the Americans would put more tomato in than I would natively expect, and I am after all cooking for Americans here" - so I came to the internets (where else?) to look at recipes for spaghetti sauce.

And, y'know? It's not only that they do indeed go for far more tomato. It is that I do not even recognise all of their tomato-ing. Tins of tomatoes, check; tomato paste, check (well, we call it tomato puree, but hey); and - tomato sauce? On top of all of that already? What is this tomato sauce? We don't have that, not in the UK, us.

Karen says it's like what you spread on pizzas, which I made a load of that for pizza night last month, but even so. Not quite seeing the point here. Um, help...? What is tomato sauce, and how does it differ from all these other forms of tomato-in-tins, and why is it added and is it needed and help?


*Heh, did you see what I did there?

Comments

[spaceoperadiva]

I have no idea why you'd put all three in the same recipe, unless you're only using a little of the tomato paste to thicken the tomato sauce.

[desperance]

I was seeing recipes - plural - that used a can of tomatoes, two 6-oz cans of tomato paste and two cans of tomato sauce for two pounds of meat. (This was the point at which I went back to my bolognese and added a can of tomato paste, to bring it closer to what I inferred was US taste; I'd only put in one can of tomatoes hitherto.)

[spaceoperadiva]

I have to admit that I just throw things into a pot to make tomato based spaghetti sauce, so I've never actually read a recipe for it. It doesn't usually involve tomato paste, though. I tend to save the paste for occasions where you want Super Tomato Power. Some day I must look for a proper recipe for sauce Bolognese and see what it's like.