Tomato Sauce

The perfect tomato sauce is like the perfect novel. Ask readers and writers about their favourite book and they might say it is all about form and content. The perfect combination of ingredients, structured and balanced with enough flavour to make you wail for more and experience a kind of sadness when it’s finished. Like the offspring who took the latest Harry Potter doorstopper to bed for the entire weekend and after she'd finished, refused to get out of bed because of the sadness she felt, so too for penne coated in the perfect tomato sauce with a light dust of shaved parmesan casting a textured golden hue. Devoured quickly, the bowl wiped clean with a crispy crust of ciabatta; it's a beautiful story, not just dinner. You’ve loved it and you feel kind of sad when it's over.

And so, instead of desk time and the gnawing expectation of 1000 words a day (minimum), I find the perfect excuse to procrastinate. It's off to the local supermarket and to stand in the aisle six. I take time to read every label on every jar of pasta sauce on four dedicated shelves from down at ankle level to way up on high. Like the little old ladies who sometimes tap my arm and point up to various items, I put on my sweetest, most helpless face and look around for help.

“Please sir, could you get those jars down for me?” 

The smile; the fingers crossed. One must only ever make muscle requests to young, fit men whose roguish strength is obvious. Young men with serious guns; biceps to rival those on the Jersey Shore boys; biceps well-earned from long hours in sweaty gyms. 

“Why do supermarkets have shelves no one can reach?” I ask a young man whose upper arms ripple under skin-tight short sleeves as he reaches up to grab jars. He knows his upper arms are rippling. He's keeping an eye on every ripple. Supermarket shelving is hopeless, he agrees as he glances down to his ripples, yet again.

“Surely accidents happen when people reach up? Think of the back strains and the insurance claims.” 

He nods, smiles and wanders off, pumped. He’s happy; another mini gym session completed during working hours. I am appalled not only by the ridiculous layout of the supermarket but also by the contents of the sauce jars. Dehydrated unmentionables; chemicals and preservatives with big, complex-sounding names that end in ‘ose’ or ‘ane’; stabilizers and enhancers; and sugar: lots of it.

The only sugar-free options seem to be tomatoes in tins, which, according to the health guru's email that lands in my inbox on Friday mornings, are lined with deathly, toxic substances, and tall bottles of passata. But basic pureed tomatoes are expensive and heavy to lug home.

It’s no coincidence that at the very moment I sign up to the serious writing course (TSWC), I decide it’s time to ditch those supermarket nasties and start making tomato sauce. This noble pursuit means finding cooking-grade tomatoes in places other than the usual spots, and since buying tomatoes on their own is ridiculous, tomato hunting has morphed into regular full-on fruit and veggie expeditions to faraway places; every adventure a wonderful, welcome distraction from the TSWC.

But back to the perfect tomato sauce. It is culinary folklore and a cruel conspiracy against slapdash cooks to demand tomatoes be peeled before cooking. It is total rubbish, the view that tomato skin causes a bitter aftertaste that detracts from a sauce’s sweetness. To make the perfect tomato sauce, all you have to do is wash the tomatoes, cut them in half sideways, squeeze out the seeds (to throw into the garden later in the hope they might sprout) and chop off the ends. 

Then grab a pot, throw the tomatoes in and simmer with the lid on until the mixture is pulpy. If the mixture is still runny after an hour or so, take the lid off and allow evaporation. At some stage, add salt and any herbs or spices you fancy. And if you agree with Santino, one of the kid’s bosses who, between high octane cussing and noisy rants about deadlines, proposals and tenders, swears by nutmeg in all tomato-based dishes, then add nutmeg to taste.

Next, find containers in your beautifully decluttered cupboard, another glorious bi-product of furious procrastination. If you opt for glass, run the jars and their lids through the dishwasher, because dishwashers make fine sterilizing agents. If you don’t care about sterile conditions, and nor should you, because these days we are becoming sicker and sicker from germless living, take the jars or plastic containers straight from the pantry and line them up beside the stove.

Pour the sauce into the containers and leave them on the bench to cool. Then refrigerate and eat as soon as possible because the perfect sabotage to TSWC contains no chemicals. It does not keep. The perfect tomato sauce needs to be enjoyed as soon as possible so it can be created over and over again.

Perfect.