(An ode to) Pasta al pomodoro

Pasta al pomodoro — pasta with tomatoes — is so deeply rooted in the imagery and identity of Italy that it’s difficult to imagine how relatively ‘new’ this simple dish truly is.

In his delightful book A Short History of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce, Massimo Montanari, an Italian historian specialising in food and medieval agriculture, tells us the thrilling tale of how what we currently know as spaghetti finds its roots in a Sicily dominated by Arabs in the eleventh cen