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

[marilyn traber 011221]

> Sweet Jayzus, I knew about the ketchup, but Spaghetti-O's, too???  
> 'Tis a dark, dark world we live in, an' no mistake.

Amazing what people consider food, isn't it?


> This is one form of pretty standard Sunday Italian-American "gravy", 
>  and certainly nothing to sneeze at under any circumstances. But 
> then,  I also like the "recipe" given by Richard Castellano in "The 
Godfather".

Never seen that one- or don't remember it.

> > 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.
> 
> I've heard similar regarding other rather unlikely people. It's a  
> skeleton in the cultural closet.

Yeah, really. But, that sort of thing is what gives us memories of comfort 
food. The one I remember best, of course, is my mother's Fried chicken/mashed 
potatoes/ green beans, but she'll tell you a tale of shrimp in wine sauce and 
fried bologna, back when I was maybe 5 or 6, and my little sister was still 
in diapers ;-)

> > Now, I dunno about anyone else, but Ragu is, well, not BAD,
> 
> And people say you're not diplomatic ;-) ... I think it's pretty  
> terrible, myself -- I think it's all the sugar, or maybe they've  
> finally sunk to the high-fructose corn syrup stage.

I try now and then. Trouble is, when I'm being diplomatic, I either get 
ignored, or someone raises Hel about something that has nothing to do with 
the discussion. At least when I tell it like it is, the argument's about the 
topic under discussion, not some wild hair from someone else's 
misunderstanding.

As far as Ragu, it's not the sweetness that disturbs me so much as the flavor 
(to me) of what may be textured vegetable protein. Frankly, TVP tastes to me 
like dirt, and that's why I tend to avoid many commercially prepared 
products. Lots of them seem to have it in it.

> > 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!
> 
> <sigh>

Hey, what can I say, we were broke, hungry, and the Spam was available. Trust 
me, the tomato sauce neither disguised nor blended with the Spam flavor.

> > 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.
> 
> And this is a surprise to someone who has lived through the 
> Cuskynole  Wars?

Well, I think our argument went a bit longer, from about 1980, to his death a 
couple years ago.

 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.
> 
> Perfectly understandable. I grew up with a meat sauce consisting  
> (often) of whatever jarred goop was on sale (and that was sometimes  
> Ragu), sometimes thickened with a little tomato paste, mixed into  
> cooked ground beef and simmered very briefly. It wasn't actively  
> toxic, anyway.

Yep. You do what you gotta do. I've improvised quite a few times, as have we 
all, I think. I just got to the point, where I only buy ingredients, rather 
than commercially prepared stuff,, because it's a lot easier to convert an 
assortment of random, single ingredients into food, than it is to try to make 
some of the commercially prepared stuff into food, if you don't have the 
right things to mix with them. Hamburger helper, for example, is NOT a good 
combination with canned tuna or jack mackeral.

> Normally (again, when I'm in a hurry, and I rarely make tomato pasta 
>  sauce when I'm not, because SWMBO is massively allergic to tomatoes,
>   so pasta with a tomato-based sauce is normally a thing for when 
> I'm  alone with the Evil Spawn and he's howling for sustenance to 
> fill the  gaping teenage maw) I saute onions and garlic in olive oil 
> in an iron  skillet, add ground beef or Italian sausages, either pre-
> cooked or  pulled from the casing. When the meat is browned and 
> cooked through,  I add a can of plum tomatoes in heavy puree and a 
> tiny pinch (less  than 1/8 tsp) of baking soda to cut some of the 
> acid that is  sometimes evident when tomatoes aren't cooked long or 
> slowly enough.  Some people will say this is abominable, but on a 
> chemical level, the  baking soda turns into CO2, water, and salt,
>  the CO2 escapes and the  water and salt would be there anyway. Some 
> of the same people who  claim it's abominable also add sugar or even 
> raisins at this point,  so I guess abominable is in the eye of the 
> beholder. A splash or red  or white wine is optional, generally 
> based on whether I have an open  bottle handy. I add oregano,
>  occasionally basil, and a lot of chopped  parsley (I'm not one of 
> those that runs away shrieking at the mere  mention of dried parsley,
>  BTW). Salt and pepper, and after a brief  simmer, a few drops of 
> additional olive oil.
> 
> This is all done in the same time it takes to boil a gallon of pasta 
>  water, so from cabinet and fridge to plate is  about the same time  
> frame as if I used Ragu (bleah).
> 
> Adamantius

Basicly, what I do, except where I slow cook, you add the baking soda. I'm 
glad of that idea- I'll try it some time. I slow cooked because the slow 
cooking brought out the sweetness and blended the flavors, and I just 
tolerated the acid when I didn't have time to slow cook. And, sorry, folks, I 
know there are a lot of fans of adding sugar to spaghetti sauce on this List, 
but it just ain't going into my spaghetti ;-)

Phlip, always happy to learn something new ;-)