Cento

[tim irvine]

In my store I noted Cento, my go to brand, whole tomatoes in two varieties, regular (which are pretty darned good IMO) and San Marzano for a good bit more. Anybody compared them?

[tim irvine]

Thanks one and all. Unless I am using fresh I am very content with the regular Cento. I'll spend the difference on better cheese as I really can tell the difference on real Romano!

[treb]

The reason they may taste alike is that the first ingredient on the can is puree. For good quality SM's, It needs to be tomato juice.

[Perilagu Khan]

I've been curious about this, too, but not curious enough to shell out the extra dough. I suspect a marketing ploy here.

[Jay F]

I tried both a few years ago, because I could buy the #10 can (huge) of non-San Marzanos at Costco for $3 and change. I thought they tasted the same, or even that the non-SM tasted even better than some small cans of Cento SMs.

I e-mailed someone at Cento and he told me that while they can't guarantee that any single batch of either SM or non-SM was going to taste better than any single batch of the other, it was his experience that it was usually hard to tell the difference. And he sent me a dozen Cento coupons to use for tomatoes and other products.

http://www.cento.com/