[Sca-cooks] Spaghetti sauce- long- was Mock Beef Stroganoff

[marilyn traber 011221]

> I'm interested in the whole stroganoff spectrum because A) I like 
it,
>   and B) it's one of the Great Triad of classic dishes that have 
> been  Americanized, sometimes beyond  all recognition (the others 
> being  "goulash" and "chop suey"), or sometimes in which any 
> resemblance to  the original foods living or dead is purely 
> unintentional. I'd put  American spaghetti and lasagne dishes on 
the 
> fringe of this  phenomenon, but they at least are based on a main 
> ingredient that is  actually present ;-). Please understand that 
I'm 
> not dissing these  dishes, just noting that they diverge greatly 
> from the original  formulas. They're fine (or can be) for what 
they 
> are, and not bad for  what they aren't, if you get me.

I think I've told you about my adventures with spaghetti, 
Adamantius, but if not, here we go.

Our family recipe is not terribly difficult, but is, perhaps, a 
step beyond what some folks call spaghetti- neither Spaghetti-Os 
nor catsup form any part of the recipe. We start with ground meat- 
have used hamburger, various sausages, and venison, as well as Spam 
on one particularly broke occasion- Spam is NOT an experiment 
that's likely to be repeated, although we were hungry enough to eat 
it. Meat is browned with garlic and onions, and drained. At this 
point the tomatoes are added, and that can vary quite a bit, 
depending on what I have available- I've used fresh tomatoes, 
cooked down, commercial puree, tomato sauce, tomato paste, or 
tomatoes, but I'm basicly looking for a particular texture- basicly 
thinner than it will wind up. Once this is heated through, I add 
the vegetables- chopped celery, mushrooms, a bit of good red wine, 
maybe more onions, and a couple fresh hot peppers if I have them, 
and the herbs and spices, oregano in particular, others as the 
spirit moves me and the flavors seem to call for it (different 
commercial tomato products taste different, so that needs to be 
accounted for), and let the whole pot simmer for at least a couple 
hours, checking occasionally and adjusting flavors.

When I started cooking for Father Tony, a friend of mine, who was 
Sicilian, he'd tell me it was good, but it wasn't spaghetti 
sauce. "Why" said I? "Because it's not like his Mama used to make 
(at this point she was in her early 90s, and still cooking for him 
occasionally, but not very complicated dishes). So, I asked him 
what he thought was spaghetti sauce, and he pulled out a jar of 
Ragu.

Now, I dunno about anyone else, but Ragu is, well, not BAD, but, 
shall we say, not good enough, that unless I was pretty hungry, I'd 
want to eat it- and take this from someone who actually ATE that 
stuff with Spam in it!

So this became quite a bone of contenion- he said I wasn't making 
real spaghetti sauce, I said I was too, because the sauce I was 
making went on spaghetti, so it was by definition. I think we 
argued about this, off and on for years.

One year, his sister Mary came to visit for a couple of weeks, and 
she and I became friends. We got into the soaghetti discussion, and 
she clued me in. The reason Fr Tony thought Ragu was "real" 
spaghetti sauce, was because that's what his mother had used to 
make spaghetti with, understanding that in the first place, she 
really wasn't much of a cook, and in the second place, she had 
worked a full time job in the garment district (NYC), and then came 
home to feed her husband and her two kids.

So, my spaghetti sauce isn't Marinara sauce. It isn't Ragu. But 
it's damned well spaghetti sauce, because it's a sauce that goes on 
spaghetti (and it's pretty tasty).

Phlip