Marinara

Excerpt from NYT article by By Julia Moskin Jan. 28, 2014

The first thing to know about marinara: it’s not a synonym for tomato sauce.

“Marinara is very specific,” says Oretta Zanini de Vita. “Tomato sauce is a completely different thing.”

“It’s all about quick, and light, and feeling the tomatoes in your mouth,” said Lidia Bastianich, who recently published her 12th book on the food of Italy, “Lidia’s Commonsense Italian Cooking” (Knopf).

Real marinara sauce has the taste and juice of fresh tomato, but also a velvety texture and the rich bite of olive oil: even the best jarred sauces can’t pull that off. And because it comes together from pantry ingredients before the pasta water even comes to a boil, it’s a recipe that home cooks should master.

The trick to perfect marinara is to cook it at a vigorous simmer, so that the tomatoes are cooked through just as the sauce becomes thick. The tomato pieces hold their shape, the seeds don’t have time to turn bitter, and the color stays bright red. Done right, it explains why spaghetti with tomato sauce is a dish that a person might crave virtually every day, as fundamental as bread and butter

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Marinara sauce originated in southern Italy, with both Naples and Sicily being cited as its possible birthplace. It could not have been invented before the 16th century when tomatoes, a New World food, arrived in Europe, and the first mention of tomatoes in Italy dates to the mid-1600s.

Marinara sauce pre-dates the 19th century is that it is named for the sailors (marinai – italian for sailors) who manned the ships that were the backbone of the sea trade that flourished long before the 19th century.

The most believable explanation as to how the sauce came to be named for the sailors is that its ingredients – oil, tomato sauce, garlic and dried herbs – traveled well and didn’t spoil easily, as meat or fish did. The ingredients could be assembled quickly and easily, in about the same time it took pasta to cook, and the two together made a tasty, filling and inexpensive meal for men at sea.