He meant historically, tomatoes are native to South America before being brought everywhere else. So ie a Sicilian getting angry about not doing some red sauce pasta dish due to feeling this is their heritage original dish and they have patent on the proper procedure... it depends how far back in time you look.
Same ie potatoes in eastern Europe, a base in many many 'traditional' dishes. Yes if we look maybe 10 generations back, not so much for say 30 generations
Exactly. Use of red sauce in Italian cuisine is what, if it were invented today, we would call "Ibero-Italian fusion cuisine"; and the Spanish and Portuguese red sauces were developed after their early exploration of the Americas.
So much of creativity is the result of mixing diverse elements in unique ways. And it's especially rich to rant about "purity" or cultural "ownership" regarding something that is fundamentally the result of such a fusion.
EDIT: Speaking of which, if you haven't tried pasta or pizza with a Portuguese pepper-tomato sauce, you're missing out.
Same ie potatoes in eastern Europe, a base in many many 'traditional' dishes. Yes if we look maybe 10 generations back, not so much for say 30 generations