First pasta sauce for the year (now the freezer shelf is bare of the last container from the previous batch – so many dinners from one pot!)
Each time the recipe ends up a little different, but for this one there is…
- Passata for past ‘tomato days’ when three generations made the sauce together.
- Olive oil – a symbol of peace and the heart of Italian food.
- Onion for the layers of life (and tears shed).
- Garlic for health and protection from the Malocchio (evil eye).
- Bietola, silverbeet for nourishment and connection to the land.
- Chuck steak for strength (and a link to as a kid I had to carry home that paper-wrapped parcel from the butcher shop up the road back to Nanna Francesca’s kitchen).
- Diced and crushed tomatoes for passion and the blood of independence.
- A dash of balsamic vinegar for patience (and quality, slow craftsmanship over fast mass production).
- A teaspoon of sugar for love, generosity and the sweetness of life.
- Salt for the sea of southern Italy (and the tide to go out in the pot).
- A handful of lentils for good fortune and a prosperous year ahead.
Hopefully, I haven’t forgotten anything but the next one will have its own story anyway. Buon appetito. 🍝 ✨
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❤️ Anche… my heart goes out to all those in southern Italy and its surrounding areas recovering from the devastation of the cyclone at present. Including the seaside town of Palmi where Nanna Francesca’s side of our family is from (and where I wrote about in, The Proxy Bride). Auguro a tutti voi forza, cuore e coraggio. Zoë xx
When we cook the same dishes that our ancestors cooked it connects us to them, to our history and it also brings us back to something within ourselves that we mightn’t have thought of for some time or something we hadn’t yet discovered. Just the aroma of a dish cooking can release a trigger of deep memories that lets things rise up and take shape in us.
The maccheroni Calabrese (pasta rolled on a knitting needle for its shape) has a richer red sauce with melanzane and chillies that Francesca’s town of Palmi is known for. And the chitarra pasta has bitter, wild greens added to the passata, inspired by Maddalena walking hillsides near Fossa picking wild greens into her upturned apron and taking them back to cook with. It also has pecorino cheese on top because that part of Abruzzo is known for its sheep.
Zoë Boccabella 