Tomato Olive Caper Sauce

Tomato Olive and Caper Sauce, Italianavera's Aulive und Chiappariell

Italianavera’s Tomato Olive and Caper Sauce is a sugo made from tomatoes, black Gaeta olives, and salted Pantelleria capers, which Diana Attianese consciously refuses to call Puttanesca. Instead, she chooses the Neapolitan expression Aulive und Chiappariell—simply olives and capers—rather than a name that disparages women.

Italianavera’s Tomato Olive and Caper Sauce is a savory interpretation of an originally Neapolitan recipe known as Puttanesca, a name founder Diana Attianese consciously chooses not to use. She calls her version Aulive und Chiappariell, simply olives and capers in the Neapolitan dialect, because she disliked the common name, which has a root word that demeans women. The jar combines tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, black Gaeta olives, and salted Pantelleria capers.

Salty, savory, and robust

With the Tomato Olive and Caper Sauce, balance is key: salty, savory, and robust all at once, the Gaeta olives meet the piquant sharpness of the Pantelleria capers, which hold each other in check. The tomato in the background softens this intensity enough that no single flavor dominates in the end. The extra virgin olive oil also plays its part, rounding out the saltiness and providing the sauce's typical Mediterranean character.

If you warm the sauce briefly in a pan, its full aroma unfolds within 10 minutes—it is saltier and more intense than most of Italianavera's other sugo recipes. Those who like olives and capers pure can leave them whole while heating; those who prefer it milder can crush them beforehand with a fork.

For crusty bread, penne rigate, and grilled fish

Tomato Olive and Caper Sauce is perfect on crusty white bread, with penne rigate, as a topping for a savory pizza, or as an accompaniment to grilled fish. It also works well with a simple pasta aglio e olio or as a topping for a bruschetta board featuring multiple sauces. Because of the saltiness it contains, it is worth being a bit more sparing with salt in your pasta cooking water than usual.

Those looking for a milder sauce without the saltiness will find it in Italianavera's Tomato Basil Sauce, while those who prefer eggplant can reach for the Sugo alla Siciliana from Napoleta'. More sauces and tomatoes from Campania can be found in the Pasta, Risotto and Sugo category in the shop.

Diana Attianese and a name with conviction

As a trained economist, Diana Attianese brought a fresh perspective to a canning business in 2014 that her father already knew, founded among the tomato fields around San Marzano sul Sarno. This fresh perspective is perhaps clearest in no other recipe than the Tomato Olive and Caper Sauce, where she consciously decided against the traditional name Puttanesca.

“Aulive und Chiappariell,” says Diana Attianese about her choice of words—olives and capers in the Neapolitan dialect—quite deliberately without the name that has been linked for decades to a derogatory term for women. The harvest is processed by 10 female employees at the manufactory near Nocera Inferiore—the same women for whom Diana Attianese wanted to set an example with this naming choice.

Whether the label says Puttanesca or Aulive und Chiappariell does not change the recipe itself, but it does change whose story resonates within it. Anyone who opens the jar is eating tomatoes, olives, and capers, along with a small piece of appreciation for the women who have passed such recipes down through generations.