It would not seem easy to make the tomato into a prized ingredient, but, after decades of promotion in the food media, the tomatoes of San Marzano in southern Italy have taken on a gastronomic status as having no equal anywhere when it comes to intensity of flavor, natural sweetness and a balance of acid. 

For a foreign food like the tomato that was only transplanted from the Americas in the 16^th century, first to Naples where it grew well in the hot humid climate, it became the iconic symbol of Italian cookery—even though no recipe for a tomato sauce appeared in Italy until 1705 and the first mention of spaghetti with tomato sauce was in 1839 as typical of Naples. Back then, most Italians north of Rome never used tomatoes in their cooking.