To a degree it depends on the type of tomato mill you have - some will work with un-cooked much easier than others will.

So no. no real safety issue just easier to process if they have been cooked and softened a bit first. Less squirting. ;)

Dave

I don't think there is a safety issue but the tomatoes will go through the mill much easier if they have been simmered for a few minutes. If you do not want to work with them hot just let them cool for a half hour or so. This is what I do with tomato sauce and it works fine.

To put it simply, you NEVER need to heat or preprep the tomatoes when running them through a food strainer. I like to slice them in halves and dig out some of the seeds and water. Then put through the strainer. You get a thicker sauce with less liquid to cook down, as well as no seeds or skins to deal with. If your using an inefficient Foley food mill, it will require a lot or pre-prep work, compared to the more common type with funnel in top, and conical sieves out the side. A food mill, is shaped like a saucepan, with crank on top and a single paddle that barely pushes much through without a lot of effort. This type is called a Foley. The food strainer (Villware, Weston, Roma, and many other names are very differnet and use a conical shaped spiral and sieve to crush the pulp and juices through, and pushes the waste skins and seeds out the narrow end of the sieves. Once the waste is passed through, I like to push it through again to get a bit more of its juices extracted. I use mostly plum and paste type tomatoes for thick sauces, so they usually contain more solids of pulp compared to a big watery salad eating type tomato.

Cook before a food mill? Perhaps for the Foley, bit I use a Vittorio strainer for tomatoes, and raw ones go through great. I can't imagine that cooked ones would work at all!

Cooked ones work equally great in a Vittorio. ;) Faster processing and less "squirts". But either way works - personal preference.

Dave

My old Squeezo (Vittorio type) works best with tomatoes that are a bit cooked, it takes more arm strength than I like to expend to run raw tomatoes through it.

Safety issue? Nope, it's just a matter of what works for you and your machine.

Annie

Reduce the water and 'squirts' by cutting the toms in half and digging out most of the seeds and waterty goo. I do this mostly with meaty plum types or ones that have a lot of meat compared to water. The end result a very nice thick sauce even before its going to be cooked. I like doing it this way as it reduces the cooking time and I like thicker sauces to begin with. About the only things needing precooking in a Victoro/Villware/Roma/Squeezo are apples and other harder stuff like pumpkin and squash. Even Salsa is great with the larger holed screen which does a fine mincing job. There too, I remove some seeds and the watery gel. The machine keeps out skins even if they are bigger pieces of tomato. As mentioned, there are no safety isues with tomatoes, except you do need added acid and have to figure in any added low acid ingredients which can affect safety due to a thicker density.