User:Xpicassox/Sunday sauce

SUNDAY SAUCE
Xpicassox (talk) 23:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

'''Sunday Sauce is the famed pasta sauce that a multitude of Italian-Americans have been cooking for

some hundred years now. It is the favored dish for the ritualistic Italian-American Sunday meals. The whole family gets together, gathered around the table, “They eat the Sunday Sauce. Every family has their own special way of making it, from the type of pasta it is served with, whether it’s Rigatoni, Ziti, or Gnocchi, this sauce brings the family together. It is also known as “Gravy”, “Ragu”, or “Sunday Gravy.” The meats that can be used in any combination that the cook likes best are; Meatballs, sweet or hot sausage, lamb or pork neck, Spareribs, Braciole, and chicken legs or thighs. Experiment and develop your own special family recipe. The Sunday sauce is practically a religious experience. Enjoy it; making it, eating it, talking about it, sharing it! Sunday Sauce, AKA Gravy is not from Italy, but a dish created by Italian immigrants around the turn of the last century (1900). The dish was actually created by Italians in America, on the East Coast of the United States in cities like; New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore. This being said, if a pressed for thee one place where Italian-American Sunday Sauce (Gravy) was born, it would have to be New York, and the specific spots in particular being the Brooklyn, the Bronx, Greenwich Village, and Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Most Italian immigrants to the East Coast of the United States came from primarily the South of Italy, in particular, from; Naples, Sicily, and Calabria. The natives of these areas ate a lot of Pasta, tomatoes, green vegetables, lentils, and Ceci (Chick Peas). The people of these areas were quite poor. This is one of the reasons they came to America, for a better life, to escape poverty. The rare times these people could obtain meat, it was normally in the form of fresh sausage or ground beef or pork, all from the cheaper cuts of beef and pork. With the ground beef and or pork (not much Veal in those early days), Southern Italians loved their Polpettine, or as they say in English, Meatballs. As in the case of being poor in the South of Italy, the Southern Italian immigrants who came to America started off poor in America but a higher level of poor and if they worked hard, which most did, they could quickly leave poor behind and move into the Middle Class strata of society. In their poorer days, these Italian immigrants did not have a great deal of money. Many didn’t not have the money to buy meat for more than one or two days a week, and as was the case ate much Pasta Pomodoro (Pasta with Tomato Sauce), Pasta con Ceci (Macaroni with Chickpeas), Lentil Soup and things of that nature. Many could only afford meat once a week and this was usually reserved for the big Sunday Meal of Pasta with Sunday Sauce. “OK, Gravy.” On Sunday maybe the had Spaghetti and Meatballs, which they do not eat in Italy. Yes the have Spaghetti and they have Meatballs in Italy, it’s just that they are not served together, but as separate courses. The Meatballs which might be cooked with tomatoes in a sauce or fried and eaten without sauce, but alone and on their own. It was in New York and other East Coast cities where the Italians living in these cities combined the Spaghetti with Meatballs together in one dish, to get the fame Italian-American “Spaghetti and Meatballs,” known and Loved all over America not just by Italian-Americans, but all Americans, though, still till this day, it is the Italians who cook these dishes the Best. Those early Italian immigrants in America, as we’ve stated were poor, so in order to stretch the little bit of meat they could afford for the whole family, they served the Meatballs with Pasta, usually Spaghetti, Rigatoni, Caviatelli, Ziti, or other pasta. The Spaghetti and Meatballs morphed into a bigger more elaborate dish, “Sunday Sauce” AKA Gravy, which could be any combination of Sausage, Meatballs, Braciole, and or Pork Neck and other Beef or pork cuts of meat slowly simmered with tomatoes, garlic, and onion. Most families I know make their Gravy with Sausages, Meatballs, and Braciole. That’s how my mother and all my Aunts made their Sunday Sauce. I myself, when I got older and started making my own Sunday Sauce for friends and family made mine with Sausage, Meatballs, and Pork Spareribs. Sometimes I vary this and make my Gravy with Sausage, Pork Spareribs, and Chicken Thighs. When making a Sunday Sauce (Gravy) it is tradition to make plenty of extra Meatballs then you will eat on Sunday. This in order to have leftover meatballs for the ritualistic making and eating of Monday Meatbal Parm sandwiches. This is for the men, more so than for the ladies. It’s tradition and a good and tasty one at that. There are no statistics on it, but this sauce has done more to keep families together, unifying and strengthening them along with nourishing the participants while giving them a reservoir of fond memories to nurture their minds, bodies, and souls. '''

by DANIEL BELLINO ZWICKE