Silly question for those with Italian moms & grandmas...

[MissMet]

If you grew up in a family of Italians, did you grow up eating spaghetti with meat sauce (bolognese)?

I grew up in an Italian family in NY. I cannot recall ever having meat sauce made by my mother or grandmothers or any of my other relatives. The only time I ever ate spaghetti with meat sauce growing up was at my Irish, best friend's house or at summer camp and it looked like this.





One day my husband, who proudly proclaims his 10% Italian heritage as though he is from Rome just visiting on a work visa, asks me to make him spaghetti with meat sauce. I was dumbfounded and had to figure out how to even make it. Do I make a whole new batch of sauce or should I just break up my meatballs into the sauce I have in the freezer??? That is when I realized my epiphany- I've always thought of that dish as a dish "non-Italians" eat. Of course when I said this to my Italian stallion of a husband, who is actuall almost completely Irish, he was offended & felt I was taking away his prized Italian card. I'm just seriously wondering if my take on this how a lot of Italians feel or just unique to me & my extended family. I asked all of my family & they all also turned up their nose at the mention of meat sauce. My brother even pointed out that his Irish wife always orders it when in an Italian restaurant. My crazy family could just be not keen on it simply because maybe my grandmother didn't like it, therefore she never made it so my mom & aunts never made it and now myself & my cousins never make it. Maybe it's a northeast thing? Who knows?

So to recap, I know it's an Italian dish, but did your Italian mom or Grandma make it at home regularly if at all? I'm not talking spaghetti, sauce, and meatballs. I'm just talking specifically about spaghetti & meat sauce.

I promise to not take away your Italian card...unless of course you call sauce "gravy". lol.

 

[PollyannaMom]

My Irish and Welch family used to have meat sauce, but DH's Irish and Italian family had meatballs and sausage in their "gravy".

 

[morgan98]

My mother was born in Italy and I have been going to Italy since I was 4 years old. I am now 46, my husband is 100% Italian and we visit twice a year. We ate Bolognese at home growing up, though not often and my relatives in Northern Italy do make Bolognese. However, we never ate meatballs, not do any of my Italian relatives in Italy including 85 year old aunts, make meat balls. Italian food varies greatly by the region in Italy. I just got back from Italy on July 4th and never saw a meatball. I do not really recall every since sausage in red sauce either while traveling throughout the country.

ETA: Italian food in the Northeast is also different than what my family and other Italians immigrants in the Midwest (Chicago area) ate.

 

[powellrj]

My Grandfather was Italian and I remember my Grandmother making spaghetti with meat sauce, but never a meatball and she would make an easy sauce. No all day affair with roasting the bones. My uncle would make clam sauce. My dads best friend was also Italian, his grandmother didn't speak any English and he said she would make sauce that cooked all day.

 

[fly girl]

I'm Italian. Great Grandpa had thee spaghetti sauce recipe that no one can emulate. Took it to his grave. But my Grandma did come close.

It was an all day affair that not only included meatballs but other meats as well -- chicken and pork chops. They would cook so long they'd disintegrate. She also put in potatoes near the end so they wouldn't be mush, but they'd get the meat flavor. Oh man, the potatoes were my favorite part.

FWIW, part of Italy my family is from is Sicily.

 

[AppleDumpling]

I'm half Italian and also from NY. My grandmother usually made sauce with sausage or braciole. My mom also made meatballs, often with a combo of ground beef, veal and pork. I don't really remember having meat sauce. I make it for my family sometimes, because it's easier than meatballs and I like it.

 

[KBoopaloo]

We never had meat sauce like a Bolognese but our sauce (gravy) was always made with meatballs, sausage, pork and sometimes brachiole. So anytime we had gravy (once a week usually), it always involved meat but I would not consider it a "meat sauce" if that makes any sense at all. LOL

 

[bcla]

Not Italian or related to any, but I worked with Italians. One manager was actually originally from Bologna. I went out for lunch with him, and it was a local pasta place. I forgot what he ordered (ravioli maybe.), but I kind of pointed to what I wanted on the menu as to not call attention to what I was ordering, which was penne Bolognese. It was a pretty authentic preparation with celery, carrots, and ground pork/lamb. As soon as it got to the table he looked at it and smiled out of recognition. He said it was an absolute staple in Bologna. Spaghetti isn't traditional with Bolognese sauce though. It's supposed to be flat noodles or bow ties. Maybe penne like I was having. Spaghetti Bolognese is more Italian-American.

 

[bcla]

So to recap, I know it's an Italian dish, but did your Italian mom or Grandma make it at home regularly if at all? I'm not talking spaghetti, sauce, and meatballs. I'm just talking specifically about spaghetti & meat sauce.

I promise to not take away your Italian card...unless of course you call sauce "gravy". lol.

I wrote about my Bolognese boss, so definitely spaghetti Bolognese is something that wouldn't be understood in Bologna. It's Italian-American. It's supposed to go with flatter pasta or maybe tubes.

Pasta is also typically "primo", as an early item at a bigger meal, with "secondo" often being something with more protein.

 

[L&Lfan]

I am half Italian and we never referred to tomato sauce as gravy. Gravy to me is something different like mashed potatoes and gravy.

 

[alicat8]

My grandparents and great grandparents always made/make sauce with meatballs or sausage. Great grandparents called it gravy. I can't remember ever having spaghetti with them though. Usually another type of pasta.

 

[gina2000]

My mother has always said that southern Italy very rarely had meat at any meal and when these people immigrated in the 20th century, they were able to use tougher meats in their sauce (and called it gravy because in Italian suga translates as gravy/sauce with or without meat). Bolognese sauce (ragu) I believe is from the north and since many immigrants were from Naples and south, they created their own version of meat sauce.

We never eat spaghetti and occasionally have Bolognese sauce which truthfully takes hours to prepare properly. We do make sauces with meat, without meat, without tomato, with veggies, olive oil, and garlic, with seafood, etc. a lot of these ideas are adaptation of family recipes and a lot have evolved based on availability.

 

[lustergirl]

My mother is from Sicily and my father is from Rome. I grew up in Bensonhurst (Brooklyn) and yes we had sauce at least once a day. That along with wine, lol.

 

[porschegrl]

If you grew up in a family of Italians, did you grow up eating spaghetti with meat sauce (bolognese)?

I don't think I have a drop of Italian in me, but I like to learn about food culture and customs.

OP, is your question about eating meat sauce in general, or about pairing it with spaghetti?

Wikipedia told me (and a PP corroborated above) that in Bologna, meat sauce is typically eaten with tagliatelle or other wide, flat noodles. Wiki does mention that spaghetti with meat sauce is common in other parts of the world (which I read to mean, "by non-Italians"). It is interesting to read everyone else's experiences here, to see if they confirm that general finding.

 

[Jennasis]

Much of my mom's side of the family is "off the boat" (Sicilian...VERY Sicilian). We ate meat sauce most of the time we had spaghetti.

Oh and it was NEVER gravy. It was sauce.

 

[phorsenuf]

Much of my mom's side of the family is "off the boat" (Sicilian...VERY Sicilian). We ate meat sauce most of the time we had spaghetti.

Oh and it was NEVER gravy. It was sauce.

Same with us, except it's my dads side of the family.

 

[Jhaberlein]

Gram and her family are from Scanno in the Abruzzo region. Any meat sauce, like a PP said, is an all day 6+ hour affair. The meat is usually beef, pork, and veal and it disintegrates as it slow cooks. Meatballs sometimes, combo of same... Beef, pork, and veal.

ETA: Noodles.... Always homemade. Sometimes taken off the back of a chair on newspaper where they were drying.

We've been to visit several times, and I don't specifically remember "meat sauce." The pasta was always the first course and it was never "hearty" the way it is here as a main meal. That said... My mom-Italian Mom makes a killer American meat sauce, lol!

 

[monorailsilver]

My mom is 100% as was her mom (duh!) and she lived with us. Picked tomatoes the end of August and she canned her gravy. There is still one jar, she died 15 years ago and lived in a nursing home for about 10 years so that jar is an antique! My uncle was going to have it tested to see what she put in it but he died...

Anyways, no meat, meatballs yes and she made me a "special" read <gag> one with raisins. Yuck yuck yuck! Always hated that little meatball. Also sausage and sometimes brasole (can't spell it).

My grandmothers family is from Naples.

 

[soccerdad72]

My mom's side of the family is from Sicily, but I wouldn't ever think that what my family does is specific to any region or even traditional in any way.

That being said, my mom (and grandma) always made smooth tomato sauce and cooked their meatballs in the sauce. Usually a pot would get divided up into three or four freezer containers and used over a month or two. They would make sauce once every couple months, since it was generally an all-day affair.

 

[monorailsilver]

I'm Italian. Great Grandpa had thee spaghetti sauce recipe that no one can emulate. Took it to his grave. But my Grandma did come close.

Doesn't that just stink!

I remember I loved my grandmothers gravy, it was fresh tasting. My mothers had more seasoning and it was good but not like my grams. It was a horrible change I had to get used to. I mean my moms is pretty good too. So far I found 2 places that taste like my grams, one was a pizza place in Fairfield CT that was owned by a HS boyfriend/short romance. And ther other I more recently found at Stew Leonard's 'Jersey Italian Gravy." It's $$$ so I don't buy it often but I can eat it cold it's that good.

And my grandmother had these meat cutter cookies-you put them thru the sausage grinder and out came these long cookies that got baked but you put sugar on the top. They were hard and crusty on the outside and flakey on the inside. She had so many recipes of this/different amounts, etc... And we never found the correct one. My mother thinks she threw away her cook book.