"In the window I smelled all the food of San Francisco. Just show me the bluefish spangle on a seafood menu and I'd eat it; let me smell the drawn butter and lobster claws. And oh, that pan-fried chow-mein flavored air that blew into my room from Chinatown, vying with the spaghetti sauces of North Beach, the soft-shell crab of Fisherman's Wharf -- nay, the ribs of Fillmore turning on spits!"
Jack Kerouac,” On the Road”, 1955
Lometa's Spaghetti Sauce
3 Tablespoons
Olive Oil
1 lb hamburger (if
meatballs are not made)
4 cloves of
Garlic (finely chopped)
1 large can of
Peeled Tomatoes
2 small cans of
Tomato Paste
2 Tablespoons
Sweet Basil
1½ Teaspoon
Salt
1 Teaspoon
Pepper
1 Tablespoon
Sugar
1
Pork chop or
Italian Sausage
Fry garlic in olive oil slowly for about 5 minutes. Add hamburger and fry until brown. Add tomatoes and tomato paste, plus two tomato paste cans of water to meat. Add sweet basil, salt and pepper. Taste sauce for bitterness, add sugar if bitter. Add in pork chop or sausage. Simmer 2-3 hours. Stir often to make sure it's not sticking. Remove pork chop or Italian sausage before serving.
Serve over Lometa's Meatballs
Buono Appetito!
A litte history
The original recipe was handed down from my mother's side of the family. Through the generations the recipe has changed all are measurements to taste. You may want to add
oregano as the original one did not call for it. The tomato,
Lycopersicon exculentum is considered by many to have been first domesticated in
Mexico, where a variation of the wild cherry tomato was developed. Sometime between the middle and end of the 16th century the Spaniards acquainted the Europeans with the tomato from
Peru who by and large greeted this fruit with apprehension and disdain owing chiefly to the tomato's association in the
Solanacea family, which consists the deadly nightshade as well as many other poisonous varieties. One European source entitled
Gerarde's Herball, published in 1597 lists tomatoes "commonly available in Italy and Spain", listing them as the places where he picked up the seeds for his own garden. The author mentions that he was growing and eating both red and yellow varieties. Incorporating a picture for classification of the plant he retained a poor opinion of them but adds:
"In Spain and those hot Regions they use to eate the Apples prepared and boiled with pepper, salt and oyle: but they yeeld very little nourishment to the body, and the same naught and corrupt. Likewise, they doe eate the Apples with oile, vinegre and pepper mixed together for sauce to their meat, even as we in these cold countries doe Mustard."
While Northern Europeans suspected the “wolf peach” was poisonous, it was the Italians who hailed it as pomi d'oro meaning golden apple eventually adopting it into their cooking. The French greeted this love apple or pomme d’amour gastronomically as well aphrodisiacally, yet it wasn’t until the 1830s that the tomato was much more than an oddity in England or America. “Today, the tomato is known as the pomodoro in Italy, as the tomate in France, Germany, and Spain, and as the tomaat in Holland,” says one expert surrounding the birth and continuing history of this heart-warming plant. The tomato came to America in the late 1700’s along with all of these legends. Thomas Jefferson and other venturesome gardeners encouraged its popularity and by 1835, tomatoes were widely eaten.
Trivia
Did you know?
- Pasta existed for thousands of years before anyone ever thought to put tomato sauce on it. The Spanish explorer Cortez brought tomatoes back to Europe from South America in 1519. Even then, almost two centuries passed before spaghetti with tomato sauce made its way into Italian kitchens.
- Talking about spaghetti and meatballs: the Italians ate meat only a few times a month. When they arrived in America, where meat was so plentiful, they incorporated meat into their cooking more often, making meatballs an American invention.
- The first American pasta factory was opened in Brooklyn, New York, in 1848, by a Frenchman named Antoine Zerega. Mr. Zerega managed the entire operation with just one horse in his basement to power the machinery. To dry his spaghetti, he placed strands of the pasta on the roof to dry in the sunshine.
- The stuff that makes tomatoes red may possibly aid n reducing the risk of prostate cancer. In a study from 1986 to 1998, evidence was found in men who ate a diet rich in “tomato sauce, ketchup or other tomato-based products containing the powerful antioxidant known as lycopene were up to one third less likely to develop the disease.”
Dr. Edward Giovannucci of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health, the first author of the study, said: “Spaghetti sauce was the most popular” and also looks as if to give the most protection, noting that cooking raw tomatoes, as is done to make spaghetti sauce, may break down cell walls of the fruit and allow the body to absorb more of the lycopene.
- One cup cooked spaghetti provides about 200 calories, 40 grams of carbohydrates, less than one gram of total fat, no cholesterol and only one gram of sodium when cooked without salt.
Mind your forks and spoons! According to Miss Manners, if someone is looking a fork is the only utensil that may be used to eat spaghetti.
oops! Did you get some sauce on your favorite pair of pants? To remove the stain pre-treat with a stain remover then wash. Is the stain still there? Sponge it with a solution of equal parts white vinegar and water, rinse in cool water. Try the stain remover again then wash.
Pasta Trivia:
www.makepasta.com/pastatrivia.html
TMSC: site map:
www.morningstarco.com/sitemap.html
Tomato History:
http://www.hungrymonster.com/FoodFacts/Food_Facts.cfm?Phrase_vch=Tomatoes&fi52