Sauce is an important part of our family cuisine. More accurately, it’s a staple food. Everyone in my family can make home made sauce. By sauce I don’t mean gravy, marinara, carbonara, alfredo, or pesto; I mean plain, old traditional non-chunky, tomato sauce. Oh, there are many versions of “the sauce,” even in my own family, but great-gramma Mollico’s plain ordinary sauce still stands the test of time. The first thing my Polish mother had to learn to cook once she married my Italian father was sauce. Same thing happened to me when I married a Welshman, even he had to have “the sauce.” Non-Italian family members become blood relative Italians once they master making of or craving of “the sauce.” The alternative acceptance into the family is surviving someone conning the new comer into eating the hottest pepper ever grown without passing out dead. Which by the way, has happened every time my cousins or I brought a new potential friend to a family gathering; the hot pepper test has driven away many a suitor.
The making of the sauce used to be a long drawn out process that started with planting garden tomatoes. Dozens and dozens of tomato plants covered Grampa Rinaldi and the surrounding neighborhood back yards in lieu of harvesting plump, red, juicy tomatoes in preparation of the annual sauce making ritual. In late summer, the tomatoes were gathered in wooden bushel baskets and carried down into the cellar and upstairs kitchens in Grampa’s house. Both Grammas Mollico and Rinaldi, Aunt Katie, and Millie, from next door, cooked the tomatoes and spring water in huge pots on top of both her stoves. The whole house would smell like stewed tomatoes. They stirred up the mixture with, what looked like to me, small oars until the tomatoes were stewed just right. Then, the canning process began.
First the tomatoes were put through a sieve. Gramma and her helpers spend hours cranking the handle on the sieves that removed the tomato skins and seeds. Once the skins and seeds were separated from the tomatoes, the puree was poured into shiny, cleaned, mason jars. Gramma brought cases of new Mason jar lids from Uncle Jim’s store so that the jars would be sealed properly. Once the jars cooled, they were stacked on the shelves that Grampa built down in the cellar. All the helpers got to bring home their share of the prized canned tomatoes as payment for helping Gramma. Our family never had to buy a jar of Ragu when Gramma was alive. All we had to do was go down the cellar and pick up a jar.
Sadly, the tomato harvesting and canning is now a lost art in our family. Even my Mom, buys cans of tomato puree in the grocery store. As a kid, I loved hanging around watching and listening to the woman chatting away about all kind of things as they were cooking. And, I can now barely even remember the smells that radiated from Gramma’s kitchen.
While I was pregnant and off from work on maternity leave, I had Gramma Rinaldi teach me how to cook. My Welshman husband had the sauce craving really bad so I would call Gramma and tell her what we wanted for dinner. She would tell me what to get from the store. I would bring the groceries to her house and we would talk and cook. Just like her and her canning helpers did when I was small. She knew I would never go through all the trouble of canning tomatoes so she adapted her recipe so that I could make sauce from store bought canned tomatoes. She said to always buy Contadina tomato products because they tasted the closest to her canned tomatoes. Gramma rarely wrote any recipes down on paper, so I wrote down what she taught me.
Gramma Grace Rinaldi's Spaghetti Sauce
1 Lb Pork Butt or Country Style Spare Ribs
Olive Oil
2 Cloves Crushed Garlic
2 Large cans of Tomato Puree
¾ can of water (use tomato puree can)
2 Small (6 oz) cans of Tomato Paste
1 can of water from the tomato paste can
3 Whole Bay Leaves
Sweet Basil
Garlic Powder or crushed garlic cloves
Onion Powder
Oregano
Parsley
Grated Parmesan or Romano Cheese
Salt
Pepper
Sugar, “only if the tomatoes taste bitter.”
Brown pork and garlic in enough olive oil to cover the bottom on a Dutch oven type pan.
Add the tomato puree, tomato paste, and the water from both sized cans. (I think Gramma used the cans to measure the water in order to get every bit of the tomato to come out of the cans. My family doesn’t waste anything.)
Add each of the other ingredients one at a time by sprinkling enough of each to lightly cover the whole top of the pan. Go easy on the salt and sugar. After you add everything use your own taste to judge as to whether or not you have enough of the herbs and cheese flavors coming through the tomatoes.
Let everything come to a boil, then simmer at least two hours.
The longer the sauce simmers the thicker it gets. Gramma said not to add cold water to the sauce if it gets too thick. Add only warm water or the tomatoes will get “bitter.”
If you add meatballs, fry them first before placing them in the sauce. Remember, meatballs will soak up the sauce too.
Gramma’s Meatballs
3 Lbs ground beef
1 Lb lean ground pork
2 Eggs
Garlic
Parsley
Grated Parmesan or Romano Cheese
Salt
Pepper
Stale “day old” white bread
Olive Oil
In a large bowl, add meat, eggs, garlic, parsley, cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Run a couple handfuls of stale bread under running water to moisten. Squeeze all the water out of the bread and add to meat mixture. (if no day old bread is available, sprinkle enough dry Italian style bread crumbs to heavily cover the entire top of meat mixture in the bowl.) Mix well and roll into small balls. Fry in olive oil, brown well on all sides of ball, and add to sauce pot.
