Food
By Rosemarie Mazzei
Bringing the Family Together
Making Pasta P
asta! Just this word brings so many wonderful memories to mind. If you are of Italian heritage, as I am, pasta has, of course, played a major role in your life. My Italian ancestors ate pasta with every meal. Second generation Italians living in America, today, probably don’t have pasta as a first course, or primi piatti, although I wouldn’t mind that. My grandma, whose family was from Calabria, brought my mom and aunt to America on a ship in 1923, when they were nine and ten years old. My grandfather was a chef in the Italian Army, and he stayed in Italy but came over a bit later. The family settled in North Bergen, NJ. During the 1950s, as I was growing up, our weekend ritual was to visit my grandparents on Sundays for dinner. I spent a lot of time in Grandma’s kitchen. We so looked forward to these meals, where we spent the whole day with family. My aunts and uncles numbered five, and the whole family would take their seats at the huge (or so it seemed to me) dining room table, with the Tiffany lamp hanging above. The aroma wafting from the kitchen was always intoxicating. Our meal would start with a variety of antipasto, such as roasted peppers, olives, salami, cheeses, and anchovies. The primi piatti was a pasta of some sort, be it ravioli or rigatoni, always accompanied by the wonderful Sunday gravy. And of course, there were meatballs and sausage and some sort of pork, cooked in the tomato gravy for hours. I have cherished memories of learning to cook the Sunday gravy with my mom. The secondi was the main course, which would be anything from roast beef to chicken, with potatoes and a vegetable. Next course was the salad, followed by fruit and nuts. And, finally the dessert (which I always looked forward to). The meal was served with my grandpa’s favorite red wine, Paisano. Everyone was given a little glass of wine, including five-year-old me! I was required to drink it with the meal. He said it helped with digestion, but I disliked the taste. The family stayed at the table all day, and then after dessert, we played games. We had such great times there.
Making homemade pasta for my own family started when I was in my thirties (many moons ago). My friends and I would gather and make the pasta, such as ravioli, using my pasta machine, which rolls the dough flat and thin and adjusts to our desired thickness. We would lay the dough out on a sheet atop my large dining room table and then proceed to lay the ricotta filling in lines. A wood-handled tool with a wheel on the end was used to seal the filling in the dough. Today, I still have the indelible memory of those days, since we, unknowingly, engraved straight lines down and across my pine table! We’d make fettuccine or spaghetti and hang it from clothes hangers so it would dry. The beauty of homemade pasta is that it cooks in two minutes, and it’s so light. I’d always make a quick marinara, and when we were done, we’d sit down to a lovely lunch of pasta and a glass of wine to celebrate our accomplishments. Years later, when my daughter and her husband would visit, we’d use the kitchen to have a “pasta day.” Using the Kitchen Aide attachments for my mixer enabled us to make a large variety of pastas. Again, add a quick sauce and enjoy a great meal. Today, I spend special days making lasagna with my daughter and granddaughters. A good part of our day is spent assembling the lasagna, which includes the flat pasta and the gravy. In between, the layers are stuffed with ricotta, mozzarella, sausage, and meatballs. It’s a great family project. I don’t make the Sunday gravy too often, nowadays, but I will make it, especially for company or during the holidays, because it serves so many. For a holiday dinner, such as Christmas or Easter, manicotti crepes are a favorite. These are cooked one at a time in an eight inch fry pan. Once they cool, we stuff them with a mixture of ricotta, mozzarella, Locatelli, eggs, and parsley. Baked with the Sunday gravy, these manicotti are light and fresh tasting. Most tight knit Italian families will agree that food, and more specifically, pasta—the cooking, the eating, the smells and the taste—all add up to the nucleus around which the family gathers, and so the generational traditions carry on.
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