To paste, or not to paste ...

The Bard is no help.

While pizza has been shown to be the quintessential foundational food group for skiers, pasta in all of its manifestations is neck-and-neck in second place.  Have you ever gone on a ski trip and decided to cook some or a majority of your meals in your lodging?  Having made that decision, I am confident to a 99.9999…% confidence level that at least one of those evenings pasta was on the menu.  A “no” would be a huge statistical anomaly.

If you think the pizza schisms can be raucously vocal, they are euphonous compared to those associated with “spaghetti sauce.”  I am here using the term “spaghetti sauce” to include all pasta sauces.  Whereas with pizza there are a finite number of category distinctions, not so with spaghetti sauce.  With spaghetti sauce there are undoubtedly more categories and opinions than there are skiers.

I can already hear the brassy, insistent claims … “my Italian grandmother makes the best spaghetti sauce in the world …,” … “I make the best spaghetti sauce …,” … “everyone says ___’s spaghetti sauce is to die for …,” fill in the blank … mother, uncle, great grandmother, Joe, Guido, sister … you name the relative, friend or restaurant chef.

Let’s step back.  The reality is many, if not most, spaghetti sauces prepared in ski lodgings start with bottled spaghetti sauce; many end there as well.  While Prego or Ragú are perhaps the best known based on market shelf space, the available list of bottled spaghetti sauces is almost endless.  I was in a relatively small market near a ski area the other day and counted eighteen different brands of spaghetti sauce; brands, not types.  A few days later in Albertson’s I counted twenty-two brands on the shelves, and that’s just spaghetti sauce not to include pizza sauce.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with any bottled spaghetti sauce, whether starting point or end point; it is a matter of personal preference.  Regardless of the starting point, many, if not most, people add to the bottled sauce; meat, onions, peppers, mushrooms, artichokes, garlic. 

One of the dads in our Indian Guides tribe was quite an excellent cook, and spaghetti was Saturday night dinner.  Brad was browning about three pounds of ground beef with chopped onions and a significant number of garlic cloves in a very oversized skillet.  After pouring off the fat he emptied two of those enormous 67 oz. bottles of Prego sauce into the skillet, you know the kind you buy at Costco where you cannot buy just one, the two are held together by a piece of plastic.  Brad then added two cans of tomato paste and a couple baskets of sliced mushrooms, and very quickly dinner was ready.

After making himself a plate of spaghetti and settling into his camp chair, Dan had a look of supreme contentment on his face and a wide smile.  Sounds of uuummm emanated.  We all looked at Dan and questioned, “what’s with you?”  Dan replied, “Laura’s on another of her healthy eating diet kicks.  She made sauce last weekend with low-salt ground turkey and low-salt tomatoes, and found some low-everything alleged spaghetti at the health food store.  I thought we were eating wet day-old cardboard.  The kids and I ate very little so Laura froze the sauce for us to have again later; oh, lucky us.  Now Brad’s is real spaghetti sauce, full of beef, tomato sauce, aroma and flavor.  Look at it, it just sits on top of the spaghetti; so inviting.  I’m going to dig in and just sit here and savor.”

Rich used ground bison in the condo in Dillon/Silverthorne; my friend Steve makes his sauce with ground yak.  I use a combination of ground sirloin and ground pork.  It seems that the predominant preference, at least amongst men, is a meat-based spaghetti sauce.

There are, however, a number of different types of spaghetti sauces.  Within each brand of bottled sauce there are numbers of typical sauces; alfredo (cream), amatriciana (tomatoes and peppers), bechamel (milk), carbonara (bacon), marinara (tomato sauce), pesto (basil and pine nuts), pomodoro (fresh tomatoes), puttanesca (tomatoes, olives and capers), ragù (meat, better known as Bolognese), most more finely delineated by additional ingredients.

So, what makes a particular spaghetti sauce “the best”?  Obviously, it depends upon who you ask.  It is virtually a universal consensus that the quality of the ingredients is paramount.  However, from this universality emerges a great cleavage.  Do you want your spaghetti sauce to ride on top of the pasta, or do you want the pasta to swim in your spaghetti sauce?  In simpler terms, do you like thick spaghetti sauce or thin?  

Whether starting with a bottled spaghetti sauce or starting from scratch, is there a particular ingredient upon which rides the responsibility for thickness or thinness?  All other ingredients being the same, adding tomato paste yields a thicker spaghetti sauce; the more tomato paste, the thicker the sauce.

What about the bottled sauces?  Do they all contain tomato paste?  Like most things in life, it depends.  Do some casual empiricism; read the labels of bottles of spaghetti sauce as I did with my clipboard in the aisle at Albertson’s.  I guess staying in one place and reading ingredient labels is relatively uncommon in a grocery store.  One of the store managers walked by the end of the aisle, hesitated when he saw me, walked out of sight, only to return rather quickly to stand at the end of the aisle and stare (or glare) at me at the other end.  That I continued to pick bottles off the shelf, turn to their ingredient labels, and write on my clipboard finally tickled the manager’s curiosity.  He approached and asked what I was doing; I gave him the expurgated version of why.  Happy I was no longer a spy or other threat to his store as previously assumed, the manager asked if he could help in any way.  I said, “no,” and thanked him for his forbearance.  He did offer that they were sold out of two spaghetti sauces; that would make twenty-four brands.

Here are my casual findings, bottled spaghetti sauce with included tomato paste versus sauces with only tomatoes, no paste; by no means exhaustive lists.

With tomato paste:

Barilla, Classico, Cucina & Amore, Emeril’s, Food Club, Francesco Rinaldi, Full Circle Market, Hunt’s, Mia’s Kitchen, Muir Glen, Newman’s Own, O Organics, Prego, Ragù, Scala Italia, Signature Select

Tomatoes only:

Agromonte, Alessi, Arthur Avenue Little Italy in the Bronx, Barilla Vero Gusto, Botticelli, Casa Visco, Cleveland’s Own Little Italy, Contadina, Cucina Antica, Culinary Tours, Dave’s Gourmet, La San Marzano, Lucini, Mezzetta Napa Valley, Michael’s of Brooklyn, Mom’s, Pirro’s, Primal Kitchen, Rana, Rao’s, Signature Reserve, The Meatball Shop, The Silver Palate, Victoria, Whole Foods 365

I think it is safe to say that Americans have historically preferred a thicker version of Bolognese, spaghetti sauce with meat and often with mushrooms.  Here’s an easy to make from scratch 

Americanized Bolognese:

1 pound ground beef, ground pork or a mixture (use the leanest available)

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 medium to large onion, chopped

2 cans tomato paste (6 ounces each)

2 ½ cups water  (You can substitute 14 oz. of tomato sauce for 1 ½ cups of water.)

1 ½ teaspoons basil

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon oregano

½ teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon black pepper

1 bay leaf

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (more if desired)

½ pound mushrooms, sliced, fresh, canned or bottled

1 pound thin spaghetti, cooked and drained

Salt

Black pepper (preferably ground from the mill)

Grated Parmesan cheese (fresh is best)

In skillet brown meat with onion and garlic; pour off fat.  Stir in tomato paste, water, basil, salt, oregano, sugar, pepper, bay leaf and crushed red pepper.  Simmer covered for 30 minutes.  Remove bay leaf.  Add mushrooms, simmer, uncovered 30 to 35 minutes more.  

Add a pinch of salt to boiling water; add pasta.  Cook for 11 minutes for al dente.

Serve sauce over hot cooked spaghetti.  Serve with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Parmesan.

One of the bibles of Italian cooking is Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).  Here’s what she has to say:

Classic Ragù

Ragù, as the Bolognese call their celebrated meat sauce, is characterized by mellow, gentle, comfortable flavor that any cook can achieve by being careful about a few basic points:

• The meat should not be from too lean a cut; the more marbled it is, the sweeter the ragù will be.  The most desirable cut of beef is the neck portion of the chuck.

• Add salt immediately when sautéing the meat to extract its juices for the subsequent benefit of the sauce.

• Cook the meat in milk before adding wine and tomatoes to protect it from the acidic bite of the latter.

• Do not use a demiglace or other concentrates that tip the balance of flavors towards harshness.

• Use a pot that retains heat.  Earthenware is preferred in Bologna and by most cooks in Emilia-Romagna, but enameled cast-iron pans or a pot whose heavy bottom is composed of layers of steel alloys are fully satisfactory.

• Cook, uncovered, at the merest simmer for a long, long time; no less than 3 hours is necessary, more is better.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

3 tablespoons butter plus 1 tablespoon for tossing the pasta

½ cup chopped onion

2/3 cup chopped celery

2/3 cup chopped carrot

¾ pound ground beef chuck

Salt

Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill

1 cup whole milk

Whole nutmeg

1 cup dry white wine

1 ½ cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice

1 ¼ to 1 ½ pounds pasta

Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese at the table

Recommended pasta … There is no more perfect union in all gastronomy than the marriage of Bolognese ragù with homemade Bolognese tagliatelle. … Ragù is delicious with tortellini, and irreproachable with such boxed, dry pasta as rigatoni, conchiglie, or fusilli.  Curiously, considering the popularity of the dish in the United Kingdom and countries of the Commonwealth [and the US], meat sauce in Bologna is never served over spaghetti.

1.     Put the oil, butter and chopped onion in the pot, and turn the heat on to medium.  Cook and stir the onion until it has become translucent, then add the chopped celery and carrot.  Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring the vegetables to coat them well.

2.     Add the ground beef, a large pinch of salt, and a few grindings of pepper.  Crumble the meat with a fork, stir well, and cook until the beef has lost its raw, red color.

3.     Add the milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely.  Add a tiny grating – about 1/8 teaspoon – of nutmeg, and stir.

4.     Add the wine, let it simmer until it has evaporated, then add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients well.  When the tomatoes begin to bubble, turn the heat down so that the sauce cooks at the laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through to the surface.  Cook, uncovered, 3 hours or more, stirring from time to time.  While the sauce is cooking, you are likely to find that it begins to dry out and the fat separates from the meat.  To keep it from sticking, continue the cooking, adding ½ cup of water whenever necessary.  At the end, however, no water at all must be left and the fat must separate from the sauce.  Taste and correct for salt.

5.     Toss with cooked drained pasta, adding the tablespoon of butter, and serve with freshly grated Parmesan on the side.

The only way I expect to see Hazan’s Bolognese ragù in a ski lodging is if the snow is very bad, you bring a chef with you or hire one, or you made the ragù at home and brought it with you.

By the way, the “Fundamentals” section of Hazan’s book, pages 7 through 51, are a cooking education in their own right.  Worth the read for any cooking.

Like pizza, “spaghetti” is one of the skiers’ basic food groups.  Although unstructured, and whether served over spaghetti pasta or other more preferred styles of pasta, “spaghetti” provides all of the essentials, food and comradery.  Have you ever had an unnoisy spaghetti dinner?  You can never go wrong with a little ingenuity, experimentation and a bunch of hungry skiers.