Mags
08-22-2007, 18:53
If you recall a past thread, (http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?t=22968&highlight=food+cooking+mags) I can be passionate about food. (Too passionate some would say if you read the thread. :D) Having an upbringing where a meal was not just a way to fill the stomach, but an event in itself makes for some great memories.
A local newspaper put a call out for Italian grandmas.,or those with Italian grandmas, to share stories of Sunday "gravy". Old school people never refered to tomato sauce. It was gravy. Simmered over a stove for many hours with braciole, sausage, meatballs, etc. And we always had it with macaroni. Not pasta.
Anyway, here is the article below for anyone interested. No, it's not hiking..but it is about food. All hikers love food..right? ;)
The print copy is supposed to have a variation of the family recipe in it. I'll have to pick up the copy after work and mail it to my grandmother. Won't she get a kick out of it! (She does not do e-mail) Food, and the memories associated with it for me, is close to hiking as one of my passions. :)
Thanks for indulging. ;)
Italian 'gravy'
Heirloom tomato sauce enfolds family, pasta
By Cindy Sutter Camera Food Editor
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Call it sauce, sugo, gravy or even Sunday gravy. Tomato sauce cooked by Italian immigrants and their descendants is a time-honored dish, simmered with a good dose of family feeling and culinary skill, passed down and carefully tweaked through the generations.
Like many ethnic dishes, the rich and flavorful sauce of Italian-American family gatherings underwent a dumbing down in the 1950s, becoming American spaghetti, featuring indifferently made sauce with ground beef, tomatoes and overcooked spaghetti. Sometimes — Italian grandmothers are shuddering in their afterlife kitchens — all-American style spaghetti sauce didn't even contain garlic.
The real deal, however, often called gravy in the Northeast, is a sauce lovingly tended in a cozy kitchen, simmering for hours on the back burner and served with several types of sauce-cooked meats such as a pork or beef braciole, short ribs, sausage or meatballs. It's a great dish, homey and flavorful and perfectly in tune with modern chefs' rediscovery of rustic dishes.
For those who grew up with it, though, it's more than just a tasty meal.
Alisa Love, 52, whose family moved to Boulder in 1954, and now lives in the mountains nearby, says her grandmother's and mother's sauce is a way to remember her family members, many of whom have died.
The making of the sauce was a late summer ritual. First, there was the trip to get the tomatoes.
"My mom would always go to Munson Farm," she says. "Every fall, she made five gallons — my Italian relatives called it gravy, but we called it sauce. My father taught at CU. We were famous for having spaghetti dinners at our house."
Her mom always served the sauce on thick noodles called kluski, a type often used in family restaurants in Louisville.
"I have not changed the recipe," Love says. "I start by cutting up a lot of garlic and onions and frying them (as my mother did.) The house smelled so good that everyone knew what was to come."
Love says she makes the family sauce sometimes when she's feeling a little sad.
"The smell of garlic in the house invigorates me. I lost a lot of family at a young age," she says. "I don't have any family here except for my kids. My other family is from old-world Philadelphia. It makes me feel happy about my family. (There's) some surviving thing about it."
The family secret: burning the sauce a bit.
"After the sauce is thoroughly done, (my mother) let it brown slightly on the bottom. You don't scrape the bottom. You just pour it in another pan."
That caramelization of the tomatoes is also a special feature in the family recipe of Sarah Rowland, a 20-year-old student at the University of Colorado. But the browning happens earlier in the process.
"Basically you start with your aromatics," she says of the sauce-making process. "Garlic, onions, and you saute those in olive oil. You brown the tomato paste," she says. Then she adds canned tomatoes, dried herbs and cooks the sauce down, adding meatballs and sausage.
"One thing my grandma told me is that you never add sugar," Rowland says. "That's a big no-no."
Rowland says she makes the sauce frequently and sees it as a way to remember her grandmother, who has died.
"My grandma was a really good cook, not just her sauce," she says. "I really enjoy cooking. I can make this really good sauce and honor my grandma. It was a recipe from way before her. She was the first generation from Sicily. It's a way to cook what I love ... I have pride in it basically."
For Philip Veniziano, the sauce starts in the garden. He raises tomatoes and freezes them in blocks to use in sauce year-round. He starts his sauce by browning sausage in olive oil. He likes to use grated carrots and green peppers, a departure from tradition, and plenty of onions.
"The critical thing is a cup of fresh basil," says Veneziano, a Colorado Master Gardener.
While he sometimes adds additional meats to his sauce, he often uses the sauce to bake the giant zucchinis, that he, like every gardener, sometimes finds hiding under the vine. He peels and seeds the zucchini, cuts it into strips, blanches it and then layers it lasagna-like with sauce and mozzarella, Parmesan or Romano and ricotta cheese. The older zucchini have a nice, nutty flavor that stands up to the sauce, he says.
For Paul Magnanti, his grandmother's gravy was a Sunday mainstay of his childhood in Rhode Island.
"Until I was 9 or 10, I assumed everyone went over to their grandmother's house and had ravioli after church," says Magnanti, 33, who has lived in Boulder since 1999. "There was usually something yummy smelling when you walked in the door."
His grandmother typically began the gravy on Saturday night, simmering it all night. Often, if his father left work late, he'd stop for a sample.
"He'd raid the gravy and make himself a sandwich," Magnanti says.
Generally the gravy was served with a pasta other than spaghetti, such as ziti or rigatoni. The meat was often separate, with the sauce and pasta on the side.
Magnanti makes his own gravy, using fresh tomatoes and herbs from the Farmers' Market this time of year or canned tomatoes and dried herbs in the winter. He adds the meat, often cut up pork roast after the sauce has simmered.
But he's bowed a bit to the Colorado aesthetic: "I don't (add meat) as often since I've been in Boulder. I have a lot of vegetarian friends."
He likes to use a little balsamic vinegar to add flavor and acid to his sauce.
But his gravy is about more than its good taste.
"It's a way to pass on the culture and the identity," he says. "It brings back some good memories for sure."
A local newspaper put a call out for Italian grandmas.,or those with Italian grandmas, to share stories of Sunday "gravy". Old school people never refered to tomato sauce. It was gravy. Simmered over a stove for many hours with braciole, sausage, meatballs, etc. And we always had it with macaroni. Not pasta.
Anyway, here is the article below for anyone interested. No, it's not hiking..but it is about food. All hikers love food..right? ;)
The print copy is supposed to have a variation of the family recipe in it. I'll have to pick up the copy after work and mail it to my grandmother. Won't she get a kick out of it! (She does not do e-mail) Food, and the memories associated with it for me, is close to hiking as one of my passions. :)
Thanks for indulging. ;)
Italian 'gravy'
Heirloom tomato sauce enfolds family, pasta
By Cindy Sutter Camera Food Editor
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Call it sauce, sugo, gravy or even Sunday gravy. Tomato sauce cooked by Italian immigrants and their descendants is a time-honored dish, simmered with a good dose of family feeling and culinary skill, passed down and carefully tweaked through the generations.
Like many ethnic dishes, the rich and flavorful sauce of Italian-American family gatherings underwent a dumbing down in the 1950s, becoming American spaghetti, featuring indifferently made sauce with ground beef, tomatoes and overcooked spaghetti. Sometimes — Italian grandmothers are shuddering in their afterlife kitchens — all-American style spaghetti sauce didn't even contain garlic.
The real deal, however, often called gravy in the Northeast, is a sauce lovingly tended in a cozy kitchen, simmering for hours on the back burner and served with several types of sauce-cooked meats such as a pork or beef braciole, short ribs, sausage or meatballs. It's a great dish, homey and flavorful and perfectly in tune with modern chefs' rediscovery of rustic dishes.
For those who grew up with it, though, it's more than just a tasty meal.
Alisa Love, 52, whose family moved to Boulder in 1954, and now lives in the mountains nearby, says her grandmother's and mother's sauce is a way to remember her family members, many of whom have died.
The making of the sauce was a late summer ritual. First, there was the trip to get the tomatoes.
"My mom would always go to Munson Farm," she says. "Every fall, she made five gallons — my Italian relatives called it gravy, but we called it sauce. My father taught at CU. We were famous for having spaghetti dinners at our house."
Her mom always served the sauce on thick noodles called kluski, a type often used in family restaurants in Louisville.
"I have not changed the recipe," Love says. "I start by cutting up a lot of garlic and onions and frying them (as my mother did.) The house smelled so good that everyone knew what was to come."
Love says she makes the family sauce sometimes when she's feeling a little sad.
"The smell of garlic in the house invigorates me. I lost a lot of family at a young age," she says. "I don't have any family here except for my kids. My other family is from old-world Philadelphia. It makes me feel happy about my family. (There's) some surviving thing about it."
The family secret: burning the sauce a bit.
"After the sauce is thoroughly done, (my mother) let it brown slightly on the bottom. You don't scrape the bottom. You just pour it in another pan."
That caramelization of the tomatoes is also a special feature in the family recipe of Sarah Rowland, a 20-year-old student at the University of Colorado. But the browning happens earlier in the process.
"Basically you start with your aromatics," she says of the sauce-making process. "Garlic, onions, and you saute those in olive oil. You brown the tomato paste," she says. Then she adds canned tomatoes, dried herbs and cooks the sauce down, adding meatballs and sausage.
"One thing my grandma told me is that you never add sugar," Rowland says. "That's a big no-no."
Rowland says she makes the sauce frequently and sees it as a way to remember her grandmother, who has died.
"My grandma was a really good cook, not just her sauce," she says. "I really enjoy cooking. I can make this really good sauce and honor my grandma. It was a recipe from way before her. She was the first generation from Sicily. It's a way to cook what I love ... I have pride in it basically."
For Philip Veniziano, the sauce starts in the garden. He raises tomatoes and freezes them in blocks to use in sauce year-round. He starts his sauce by browning sausage in olive oil. He likes to use grated carrots and green peppers, a departure from tradition, and plenty of onions.
"The critical thing is a cup of fresh basil," says Veneziano, a Colorado Master Gardener.
While he sometimes adds additional meats to his sauce, he often uses the sauce to bake the giant zucchinis, that he, like every gardener, sometimes finds hiding under the vine. He peels and seeds the zucchini, cuts it into strips, blanches it and then layers it lasagna-like with sauce and mozzarella, Parmesan or Romano and ricotta cheese. The older zucchini have a nice, nutty flavor that stands up to the sauce, he says.
For Paul Magnanti, his grandmother's gravy was a Sunday mainstay of his childhood in Rhode Island.
"Until I was 9 or 10, I assumed everyone went over to their grandmother's house and had ravioli after church," says Magnanti, 33, who has lived in Boulder since 1999. "There was usually something yummy smelling when you walked in the door."
His grandmother typically began the gravy on Saturday night, simmering it all night. Often, if his father left work late, he'd stop for a sample.
"He'd raid the gravy and make himself a sandwich," Magnanti says.
Generally the gravy was served with a pasta other than spaghetti, such as ziti or rigatoni. The meat was often separate, with the sauce and pasta on the side.
Magnanti makes his own gravy, using fresh tomatoes and herbs from the Farmers' Market this time of year or canned tomatoes and dried herbs in the winter. He adds the meat, often cut up pork roast after the sauce has simmered.
But he's bowed a bit to the Colorado aesthetic: "I don't (add meat) as often since I've been in Boulder. I have a lot of vegetarian friends."
He likes to use a little balsamic vinegar to add flavor and acid to his sauce.
But his gravy is about more than its good taste.
"It's a way to pass on the culture and the identity," he says. "It brings back some good memories for sure."