9 minute read
Food Stories
from James Magazine
FOOD STORIES A PASSION FOR PASTA
Mangiamaccheroni. If you know your Italian culinary history, you may recognize the term. It was a Neapolitan nickname that basically translates: “Macaroni eaters.” If you could travel back in time to the city of Naples, Italy, in the 1800s, you would have seen the streets filled with vendors hawking their wares.
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The vendors would pluck “long strands of thick pasta from open cauldrons of boiling water and hand it to their waiting customers, who would by Steve Cook
Mangiamaccheroni with plates of spaghetti at a street side counter, Naples, late 19th century. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/LC-USZ62-113417
pick up the noodles in one fistful and lower them into their mouths,” says Rebecca Winke, a writer with Italy Magazine. “The pasta would be consumed [in] a single, long gulp; a technique that became so famous that watching local mangiamaccheroni consume their pasta with their bare hands became a popular tourist attraction.”
Just where pasta has its origins is virtually anybody’s guess. Some say Marco Polo brought it to Italy from China, but it appears that the Italians were enjoying pasta long before Marco Polo was born.
SICILIAN PASSION One thing for certain, the Italians have a passion for pasta. “We had it every day,” says Marianna Merki, who, along with her nephew Gaspare Cruciata, owns Palermo Trattoria in Westchester Commons (5717 City View Dr.; DineAtPalermo.com)
“My father is 90 years old and he still has to have his pasta every day,” she continues.
Back in Sicily, where Marianna grew up, each family had their own recipe. She says her father was both a farmer as well as an excellent chef. “His mother died when he was seven and he started cooking then.” Many of the recipes that you’ll enjoy at Palermo have been in her family for generations. Marianna Merki
Palermo’s Pappardello Al Sugo is made from a generations-old family recipe. I’ve been eating this since I was a little girl,” says co-owner Marianna Merki.
Gaspare, who serves as chef in the restaurant, also grew up in the kitchen back home in Sicily. “We would eat pasta like an appetizer,” he recalls. Both he and his aunt say that not only would their families make the sauce, they also made their own pastas.
“We make many of our pastas here at Palermo’s,” Gaspare says. The ribbon pasta used in their Pappardelle Al Sugo is made right in their kitchen. The pasta is served with their special mixture of beef, pork, meatballs and sausage in a homemade sauce. It’s a very popular dish. The sauce cooks for six hours,” says Marianna. “I’ve been eating it since I was a little girl. It was my mother’s recipe but I perfected it “
Mariana says that for many of the guests, “Coming to Palermo is a tradition. It’s like coming to my house. This is our home. When people walk in, they have a sense of family. We have some that come in every week. They feel like they’re at home.” Chef Gaspare Cruciata
FAMILY PASSION Much like Marianna and Gaspare, Vito Bellantuono, who owns La Cucina Ristorante Italiano & Pizzeria in the Shoppes at Bellgrade (11440 W. Huguenot Road; LaCucinaVA.com), says he, too, would have pasta virtually every day as a boy growing up in Italy. He also explains that in Italy, pasta wasn’t the meal, but only one part. “We’d usually start with a small dish of pasta. Then we’d have fish, meat or chicken.”
Vito says the meal consisted of several courses and the family could well spend a couple of hours at the dinner table each night. Chef Vito Bellantuono
In La Cucina, you’ll discover, Vito says, “A mixture of everything…Northern and Southern [Italian cuisine].” In addition to his more traditional Italian offerings, there are always new tastes. He enjoys adding a ‘little fusion of flavors from outside of Italy.”
Vito prepared a pasta creation, which he is currently offering. The dish is his Pasta Di Pupa, which features spaghetti in a tomato, butter and pancetta sauce with shrimp and asparagus. When you visit this cozy family-run restaurant, chances are good you may meet Vito, himself. He tries to make the rounds when possible, to ensure that each guest is having a great experience. “I like to get familiar with the faces [of our guests] and find out how they heard about us,” he says. Be sure to tell him that James sent you.
La Cucina’s Pasta Di Pupa features spaghetti in a tomato, butter and pancetta sauce. It’s served with shrimp and asparagus.
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HOURS: Monday-ursday 11 a.m. - 10 p.m. Friday- Saturday 11 a.m. - 11 p.m. Try Our Pappardelle AL Sugo Homemade Ribbon Pasta with our Special Mixture ofBeef, Pork, Meatballs and Sausage, in our Homemade Sauce. 15717 City View Drive, Midlothian, VA 23113 | 804.378.7643 | DineAtPalermo.com
Abryana Tuthill enjoys the linguine marinara at Lola’s Farmhouse Bistro. Abryana is the granddaughter of owners, Tommy and Ronnie Hussey.
JERSEY PASSION Tommy Hussey who owns Lola’s Farmhouse Bistro (1840 Manakin Road, Manakin-Sabot; LolasFarmhouseBistro.com) with his wife Veronica (Ronnie) proves that even a boy from New Jersey can develop a passion for pasta. The linguini marinara with meatballs that he prepared for this article, is his own personal recipe. He adapted it from a meatball recipe he learned from an elderly Italian woman who owned a New Jersey restaurant in which he worked when he was 14 years old.
The Hussey’s granddaughter, Abyana Tuthill, who hosts in the restaurant, posed for a picture and proved so photogenic that she was invited to serve as a model for our fashion eyewear piece, also in this issue.
While Ronnie also hails from New Jersey, her grandmother is from Naples. Ronnie remembers her grandmother making her own spaghetti sauce. “She had a kitchen in the basement in addition to her own kitchen. She would stay there all day long making her sauces. We would roll pasta together.”
Much of the pasta served at Lola’s has been handmade in the kitchen, including the ravioli, which Tommy also prepared for our photo shoot. The sauce is a simple, but refined , says, using fresh, locally grown tomatoes.
Lola’s Farmhouse Bistro has been described by one guest as serving “perfectly executed comfort food and, says Ronnie, “Pasta is indeed 100% comfort food.”
Greek Taverna’s popular pastitsio is made fresh daily. It features two layers of hollow noodles sandwiched around spiced ground beef and topped with a béchamel sauce.
GREEK PASSION WITH A FRENCH FLAIR Of course, the Italians don’t have the exclusive rights to pasta. The Greeks have their popular comfort food, pastitsio, which has often been called “Greek Lasagna.
Interestingly, while you will likely find pastitsio on many a Greek restaurant menu , the dish has more of a French than an Italian influence. Nicolaos Tselementes, a French-trained Greek Chef, introduced Pastitsio to the Greeks around the time of World War I. Tselementes was no fan of either garlic or olive oil, two mainstays in Italian cuisine.
However, he was quite fond of the creamy sauces of France, especially béchamel, a key ingredient in pastitsio. Tselementes, who is considered perhaps the most influential Greek chef of all times, is gone. But when it comes to Greek cooking, I turn to my favorite Greek restaurateur, Toula Suleymanian, who with her husband Gee, owns Greek Taverna (1903 Staples Mill Road; GreekTavernaRVA.com).
30 JAMES Magazine | March / April 2020 Pastitsio may be my single favorite dish of any ethnicity and the Greek Taverna’s pastitsio is some of the best I’ve ever had. Toula says she uses her mom’s family recipe. She describes the dish as having a bottom layer of hollow pasta, with spiced ground beef in the middle and then another layer of pasta . The dish is then topped with the béchamel.
While this delicious dish is served daily in Greek Taverna, Toula says it was not something that her family ate regularly. “We usually ate it during the holidays,” she says, “especially Easter.” Toula explains that the Greek Easter is preceded by 40 days of fasting without meat. So, the dish was a welcomed treat for Easter.
Each Greek family has its own recipe, Toula says. “It depends on where you come from. Some use more cinnamon. For some, there pastitsio is more tomatoey. I think our Pastitsio has a good balance between the tomato and the cinnamon. The cinnamon is not too overbearing, but does have a hint of sweetness.
One nice thing about having her own restaurant, Toula says, “Now I can have pastitsio every day.”
Lola’s ravioli pasta is made in their kitchen. The the fresh tomato sauce is made to order, says chef Tommy Hussey.
PASSION FOR ALL Virtually every one with whom I spoke emphasized is that their passion for pasta is closely linked with a love for family. Preparing the pasta and the sauces was often a family affair. Grandmothers passed recipes down to their daughters, who, in turn, passed it down to their daughters.
And mealtime was, as several indicated, family time. Perhaps that’s why so many of these folks agreed that having a restaurant gives them an opportunity to create new memories where their guests truly become part of the family. And isn’t that the sort of thing that most all of us can get passionate about?
Ristorante Italiano &Pizzeria
