Love, (Italian-)American Style
During my (very brief) stint as a classic poor college student, I would head over to my grandparents’ house about once a month, to be fed and/or do some laundry. My grandmother, in ever-declining health, wasn’t up to cooking the foods she used to make when I was a kid (a subject that richly deserves its own post), so we’d usually get some kind of take-out.
There was, however, one time — I think I had stopped by to pick up some things I’d left in the dryer last time — she felt up to the task of making spaghetti sauce. And, just as she did every time I’d ever left her house, she loaded me up with food, including a plastic tub full of sauce, straight off the stove. Seeing as it was still warm when I got it home, it seemed a waste to put it in the fridge right away, so…
I probably polished off a pound of this rich, meaty sauce before I had the good sense to save the rest for later. I don’t think it was the last time she made spaghetti sauce, but it was certainly the last time I remember getting to eat it: standing in the dim pantry of the run-down apartment I shared with no less than five roommates, eating sauce right out of the container with a spoon I’d had to wash before using. Maybe it was just from living on ramen noodles at that point, but I don’t think I’d ever eaten anything that made me so happy before.
And yesterday, after years of trying, I think I’ve come as close as possible to making that sauce myself.
It happened pretty much by accident — in truth, I really just needed to cook some sausage meat before it spoiled — so I’m going to try and recall everything I did, in the hopes of recreating this sauce again later.
- 1 lb. sausage meat
- 1 large onion, diced
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 1 green bell pepper, diced
- 4-6 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1 big handful fresh parsley, minced
- 4 bay leaves
- 2 tbs. red wine
- 1 heaping tbs. sugar
- 2 cans crushed tomatoes
- about 1 can of water (because I couldn’t waste that bit of tomato clinging in the cans)
- salt and pepper
The rest is pretty self-explanatory; brown the meat and then the vegetables, dump in the rest, set it to simmer.
Here’s what I did differently yesterday: I pretty much forgot about it. Seriously, I walked away from it simmering on the stove and started doing something else… and then before I knew it, it was two and a half hours later and my husband was calling from the kitchen, “uh, should I be doing something with this sauce out here?”
I scuttled off to the kitchen, muttering fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck! under my breath, and found the sauce had reduced by about a third. I stirred, skeptical but hoping some of it could be salvaged, and found it was more than salvageable — it was perfect. As close as I’ve ever come to the sauce my grandmother made.
And, of course, I just stood there in the middle of my kitchen, the same as I did fifteen years ago, just eating that sauce with a spoon and being happy.
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January 30th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Great story! Isn’t it amazing how tastes can bring you back? I really want to master my grandpop’s home fries.
January 30th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Between you and me (and, you know, the 8 other people who might read this), I damn near cried.
January 31st, 2007 at 10:24 am
That sauce looks perfect! That was a beautiful memory of your grandmother and her sauce. I hope you DO do a post about her. Hell - that’d be a great one-off event “Tell Us About Grandma”!! (You can do it - I’m too lazy.) LOL
Anyway, good post.
January 31st, 2007 at 1:03 pm
That’s a great looking sauce. Bolognese sauce is supposed to be simmered some ridiculous amount of time (four hours maybe?) so I guess there’s something to the whole long simmering and mingling of flavors thing.
January 31st, 2007 at 2:26 pm
“I guess there’s something to the whole long simmering and mingling of flavors thing.”
Yes. I discovered this accidentally, as the cookbook said “1 hour” and I ended up taking more like 2 hours. Much more complex. I suppose that it’s like really good chili: longer cooking times = bigger flavor.
(Ironically, Kristen, I was just reading my HUGE italian cookbook, which calls your recipe (or a variant) the “shortcut to Bolognese sauce.”)
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:13 am
when you make fresh sauce, pasta seems to almost get in the way of catching the full flavor. i too dive into the sauce when i take the time to put together an entire batch from scratch! well done. it looks delicious
February 4th, 2007 at 5:24 am
This brings back childhood memories of my mother’s late Saturday night preparations for our Sunday afternoon pasta dinners. Thanks. Two questions: do you suggest a sweet or spicy sausage meat, and what size of can for the crushed tomatoes?
February 4th, 2007 at 9:53 am
I used sweet, because that’s what my grandmother always made, but I’m sure you could use either hot or sweet or a combination of the two.
The crushed tomatoes I used were in the big cans: 28oz. each, I think.
February 19th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I am making this tomorrow; will update with results.
December 5th, 2007 at 3:26 pm