This sauce, it’s part of me. 

I think I ate it every week as a child, usually on Sundays. We always called it “sauce.” It needed no other descriptors or explanation. 

My mom ate it every week as a child too. 

Her mom, my grandma, never ate it as a child. Grandma Eileen wasn’t from an Italian family. But she learned how to make it as a teenager from an Italian American friend. And when a few years later, she married an Italian American man who had eaten a very similar sauce every week as a child, it became part of her weekly repertoire. 

My grandpa’s mother, Emma, came to the United States from Italy when she was 16. Her version of the sauce was always slightly orange, always served with rigatoni, always delicious. My mom remembers she and her siblings hanging around the stove on Sundays, hoping for a taste of Emma’s sauce. 

What is it about this sauce? Is it just that it’s delicious?

Delicious. Rich, thick, hearty. 

But I don’t think it’s just the taste of this dish. That’s not all of it. 

I was at a local creamery recently. An older woman who spoke accented English rang up my purchases. She peered at me closely. She asked me something quietly in another language. Misunderstanding her, I said in my accented Spanish, “Perdon pero no hablo español .” 

She chuckled. “No espangnole! Italian! You are Italiana, yes? Your people, where are they from?”

I told her, “Naples, I think.” She smiled. And then she sang to me in Italian. 

Your people, where are they from? 

I’m like many white Americans. Some parts of my ethnic background I’m able to identify. Much of it, I’m not so sure about. If I were to take one of those at-home DNA tests, I’m fairly confident my results would say “Generic European Ancestry” or maybe “Generic White Lady.”

But I do come from somewhere. I do have a people.

To quote my favorite biblical scholar, “God does not create generic people.”

Sauce reminds me of the reality of place and people every time I make it. Sauce connects me to my Italian American mother, to her Italian American father, to his Italian mother. Sauce connects me to my father, who isn’t Italian himself, but loves the dish so much he misses it if he goes too long without eating it. Sauce connects me to my grandmother, who also wasn’t Italian, but who embraced the recipe as part of the story of her family.

These people, they are mine. I am theirs. This sauce, it is ours to share.  

When my father’s father died in the 1970s, my paternal grandmother was beside herself with grief. Many family members were coming to town for the funeral service, and she needed to provide a meal for them.

My mother said she would make it. She, the Italian American daughter-in-law, made an Italian American feast for the mourners. She made sauce. Many of the diners had never eaten Italian food before.

“It was what I knew,” my mom told me recently.

This sauce? This sauce is part of her. And now a part of me too.

Most traditional Italian American Sunday sauces (also known as gravy) are made with a mix of meats: meatballs, Italian sausage, pork, braciole. My family and I prefer meatballs, so that’s what I usually make. If you’d like to add other meat, brown it along with the meatballs, then add to the sauce. My mom recommends adding pork to the sauce when there are only 2 hours of cooking time left to prevent it from falling apart in the sauce. You’ll want to increase the amount of sauce ingredients if increasing the quantity of meat, however. Use your very biggest pot! If you have any parmesan rinds, add them to the sauce while simmering to add extra flavor. Sauce freezes beautifully. I usually make half the amount of pasta called for and freeze about half the sauce and meatballs for another meal.

Sunday Sauce

Ingredients:
Sauce:
28 ounce can tomato puree
28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
6 ounce can tomato paste
1 tablespoon dried basil

Meatballs:
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 pounds ground beef (best with 80% or 85% lean beef)
2 large eggs, beaten lightly
2 cups Italian breadcrumbs
1 cup grated parmesan or romano cheese
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons dried parsley flakes (or 2 handfuls fresh parsley, minced)
3/4 cup red wine

2 pounds dried pasta of choice
Additional grated parmesan or romano cheese

Directions:
For the sauce: In a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot, whisk together ingredients for sauce. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium low and cover until ready to add meatballs.

For the meatballs: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pour 1 tablespoon olive oil onto a large rimmed baking sheet; spread across pan evenly with either your hand or a brush. Set aside.

Place next 7 ingredients (ground beef through parsley) in a large bowl. Mix together thoroughly using the best kitchen tool your momma gave you: your hands. Once mixture is a uniform consistency, break off a 2-inch chunk, then roll into a ball. (Again, use your hands! I use mine as a measurement guide, and make sure my chunk of meat is about as long as the tip of my index finger to my second knuckle; see photo above). Place rolled ball onto prepared baking sheet and repeat. You’ll end up with around 28 meatballs.

Once all the meatballs are formed, drizzle the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil evenly across the top of them. Place pan in oven and bake for 8 minutes or until a light brown crust has formed on the bottom of the meatballs. Remove pan from oven, flip meatballs over, then return pan to oven for an additional 8 minutes so the other side also develops a crust. Remove pan from oven and add the meatballs to the sauce.

Immediately pour the wine onto the pan you used to bake the meatballs. Carefully place it back in the oven for 3 minutes or until wine has become hot and steamy. Remove the pan from oven (again, carefully!) and use a heatproof spatula or wooden spoon to scrape up any brown bits that were stuck on the pan. Pour wine and drippings into the sauce, scraping the pan again if necessary, and stir to coat meatballs thoroughly.

Cover pan with a splatter shield and simmer very gently for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Your goal is for the sauce to sputter gently every few seconds; adjust heat as needed. Sauce is ready when it has thickened substantially and the meatballs’ temperature measure 165 degrees.

For the pasta: About 15 minutes prior to eating, cook pasta according to package instructions. Before draining, stir 1/4 - 1/2 cup pasta cooking water into the sauce. Drain pasta. If desired, add a couple ladlefuls of the sauce to the pasta to pre-sauce it a bit. Or just pile the plain pasta on a plate, top with meatballs and sauce, shower with grated cheese, and dig in. Yield: OMG so much sauce. Enough to serve 8, for sure. I think.