Tomatoes didn't even exist at all in Italy until the "Columbian Exchange" in the 15th/16th Century. It shouldn't be a surprise at all that pizza in the middle ages was nothing like today's pizza.
The same holds true across the Pacific:
> Chili peppers spread to Asia through their introduction by Portuguese traders, who—aware of their trade value and resemblance to the spiciness of black pepper—promoted their commerce in the Asian spice trade routes.[10][14][15] They were introduced in India by the Portuguese towards the end of the 16th century.[16] In 21st-century Asian cuisine, chili peppers are commonly used across many regions.[17][18]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chili_pepper#Distribution_to_A...
All the 'traditionally' hot dishes of India and Thailand that have chili peppers are post-1492. I think that after a few hundred years it's okay to call the cuisine 'traditional'.
See Mann's book for some more on this:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1493:_Uncovering_the_New_World...
Many foods comes from cultural cross-pollination.
Standard basic common brands like Ragu and Prego have none of those. Tomatoes as the first ingredient, zero added sugar/syrup or food coloring.
I've never even heard of corn syrup or food coloring in tomato sauce. Do you have a source for that? Because I can't even see how it would make sense -- large cans of tomato purée are cheap enough already.
I still use it for certain pies, but would absolutely not rate it higher than tomato sauce for this purpose, overall.
On pizza and sex . . . I'm not even going there. But try some oil.
Good quality tomato is just incredibile.
Here in Vancouver, Via tevere makes an shockingly good tomato sauce, to the point that I get only margherita as pizza, because the flavor is so intense.
That being said, neither of them is better than the other: provola, mushrooms and truffle on a white base will blow your mind.
It's just that here in north america, they have so little choice in toppings, everything is pepperoni, something spicy, chicken everywhere. Damn!
I'm an Italian who now lives in Canada
But, like, to give a national chain, you can get oil instead of sauce on any pizza at Mellow Mushroom.
Relatedly, I've known Americans that rate Italian-American restaurants on their eggplant parm as their preferred benchmark dish.