Ryan Christenson
Professor Miller
English 110 H2
8 October 2018
My Favorite Family Dish
Everyone loves pasta and sauce especially as an Italian like myself. I grew up eating pasta every week if not more and it’s one of my favorite foods. Pasta and sauce was my go to meal before my varsity hockey games or an intense sport because of the carbohydrates that it gives you. The only thing I wish is that I was able to have my family’s homemade sauce everyday before a game. My Nana taught her daughters who are my aunts how to make it and since she passed away last February it means even more to me since it also is a way to remember her.
As a family we make our homemade sauce a little different from your average restaurant style. We take spicy sausage and meatballs to add to the sauce as we cook it so you also get a smoky taste with some spiciness to it. This makes a good balance between the sweet tomatoes and the spice that goes into it. The smell that come out of it smells smoky and sweet at the same time with a little bit of a tomato smell to it. While it is being cooked the smell encompasses the the entire house and which I feel makes everyone more happy since my entire family loves it. The sauce usually takes around 6 hours to make it in a large pot. It is not too expensive to make considering the amount that we cook at a time since there are no expensive ingredients that we use. The most expensive things that go into is the tomatoes, sausage and meatballs. When it is done cooking and on a plate you could easily eat it alone with the sausage and meatballs but when it is on a plate with pasta it looks like the thickest and richest sauce with the deep red rusty coloring and brown meat poking out.
My Nana has three daughters and a son who is my Dad. My dad never learned the recipe completely by my mom and three aunts did plus my Nana’s sister. Most of the time my family switches off cooking the meal every Christmas which is when we usually eat it since it takes so long to make. My Aunt Julie who is Nana’s sister makes incredible Italian meals for us and is the best at making the sauce in my opinion since she has been doing it much longer than my other aunts. We have a pretty big family so for Christmas we usually have around 30 people over for Christmas at my house so there needs to be a lot made and if there is leftovers we keep the rest of the food for lunch or dinner the following day. This meal will always remind me of my Nana since she is always over for Christmas when we have it. I have not had a Christmas yet without her so it will be hard for all of us to not have her there. She was a huge part of my life and I was the closest to her compared to everyone since we had a lot in common.
The person I called to talk about was my Nana’s sister. She said “that the recipe has been passed down for as long as I could remember.” This dish was always something that was passed down and is considered a food that she loved. It helps us remember where we came from which is Italy though I’m not all Italian, only around 30%. She replied to me why I think I like this meal is because we have it so rarely and since it is homemade. She loves this meal because it helps her “remember my family that has passed away and now my sister too.” This is tied with another meal that she makes that is homemade which is eggplant parmesan which is also an incredible meal that we make. Another question I asked her is how old was she when she first made it and she said “I don’t remember exactly but most likely around my late twenties.” I hope one day I will be able to cook this meal for my family also to carry the tradition. I am a cook myself and cook a lot on my own and for my family so in 20 years I will hopefully be doing the same thing as my Aunts.
Recipe:
- 8-12 ounce tomato paste
- 4 tomato cans of tomato with bay leaves
- 4 cans of peeled tomatoes
- 3 cans of kitchen ready crushed tomatoes
- Sausage, meatballs, onion, garlic
- Saute olive oil with garlic and onion
- Add tomato paste, add one can of water to 2 cans of paste
- Add tomato with bay leaves
- Add peeled tomatoes (squash before putting them in)
- Add crushed tomatoes
- Add a little bit of parmesan, sugar and oregano, 3 tablespoons of sugar
- Cook meat in oil
- Add meat with juices from the pan
- Cook sauce on simmer for 6 hours make sure you stir frequently so it does not burn the bottom
