Things turn sour in /r/GifRecipes when one person questions the addition of sugar to tomato sauce

What did you think about the scanned recipe that had sugar in it?

I saw that, yeah. It's a little disingenuous, though. The recipe cited isn't for tomato sauce (e.g., Marinara, Bolognese, et al.), but for tomato soup - a completely different thing. Many tomato soup recipes include things like cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and the like, and those naturally call for a sweetness aspect to get the full effect.

Also, why does this topic make you so angry?

I think you over-estimate my level of emotional involvement, but I'll go with it:

The OP recipe is essentially a shrimp Marinara. Marinara is a sauce that the fishermen of old - the mariners - would make out on their boats to eat with their fresh catch. It's traditionally a simple sauce, usually just five ingredients (onion, garlic, tomato, basil, and wine being the essentials) because that's all the fishermen would carry out on the boats with them. If it's made right, using the right (and ripe) ingredients, and cooked the right length of time, there's no valid reason to add sugar - the sweetness of the ingredients will come out on their own.

/r/SubredditDrama Thread Parent Link - np.reddit.com