The earliest cookbook found with tomato recipes was published in Naples.
The cookbook is associated with Naples, a major center of southern Italian food culture and a city closely connected to Spain through the former Spanish-controlled Kingdom of Naples. Its 1692 publication makes it the earliest discovered cookbook identified as containing tomato recipes. By that time, tomatoes had been present in Europe for more than a century, but their acceptance as a routine food had been gradual.
The tomato’s European story began after the Columbian exchange. Pietro Andrea Mattioli’s 1544 herbal contains one of the earliest European discussions of the plant, and tomatoes were initially cultivated in Italy mainly for their appearance. They were not immediately transformed into the foundational sauce ingredient associated with modern Italian cuisine.
The Naples cookbook’s recipes may themselves reflect Spanish influence: historical summaries note that its author obtained the recipes from Spanish sources. That detail matters because culinary ideas moved across political and trade networks, rather than developing in isolation within one city. Naples is therefore the canonical answer to the publication-location question, not Venice, Florence, or Bologna.