"SPANISH TOMATO SAUCE

"Take half a dozen ripe tomatoes and place them on the embers to
toast. When toasted, carefully remove the skins and cut into tiny
pieces with a knife. Add finely chopped onion to taste, thyme, piperna
[an aromatic herb--something like marjoram], and some finely chopped
hot pepper. Mix well with a little salt, oil, and vinegar.

"Apart from its lack of complexity or ambition, the striking thing
about this, the first ever tomato sauce recipe in Italy, is its date:
it appeared in a cookbook called The Modern Steward, published in
Naples in 1692."

(John Dickie, Delizia! The epic history of the Italians and their food
(New York: Free Press, 2008), 62.)

This sounds surprisingly good compared with many of the other early
recipes Dickie that gives. I bet you could get the effect of
"toasting" the tomatoes by roasting them on a baking tray in an oven.

--
Bob
St Francis would have done better to preach to the cats