Granny's Sunday Gravy

In which I go about recreating a recipe from a movie.

Earlier this year, my Netflix feed starting pushing a newly released film called Nonnas. In many ways it’s just a typical rom-com, designed to leave you feeling warm and fuzzy, impart some self-actualization vibes like “never give up” and “you never know who’s going to show up in your life” and similar platitudes. But, it’s got food in it, so it fit my algorithm I imagine.

It’s also, and a nice draw for me, based on a real story, of a guy named Joe Scaravella who opened a restaurant on Staten Island to honor his recently deceased mother, and his grandmother, and ended up hiring some grandmothers… nonnas… to run the kitchen. The real Joe even has a cameo appearance as a guest of the restaurant in the movie. The film was nominated for Outstanding Television Movie for an Emmy this year, though didn’t win. I didn’t see any of the other four nominees, so don’t know if it deserved it - at the least, it deserved the nomination just for its cast: Vince Vaughn, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, Brenda Vaccaro, Linda Cardellini, and Susan Sarandon.

In the background of the movie, a story arc that goes from the opening scenes to nearly the final scenes, is Joe’s attempt to recreate his grandmother’s “Sunday Gravy”, her much beloved spaghetti sauce. As is so often the claim with grandmothers’ recipes, this one was supposedly never written down, and the secrets died with her - despite the fact that both the protagonist and other family members always seemed to be in the kitchen while she was making it, no one seems to know what she put in it.

Spoiler alert - as is also so often the case, one day, in going through boxes of stuff in the attic or basement or wherever, Joe stumbles across his grandmother’s written recipe for the sauce, which, of course, was not just locked up in her head never to be shared. I, of course, replayed the scene and did a screen grab. You can’t see the whole recipe, and of course, there’s no evidence that this has anything to do with the real Joe’s granny’s recipe, or that it’s even a sensible recipe at all. It doesn’t mention salt and pepper - but then, one might say, oh, but everyone knows you add salt and pepper to recipes like this. Well, yes, but everyone also knows that you’re going to use a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to sauté things in, but that’s on the ingredient list. And was nonna really using cans of tomatoes? More likely, having been set in the 70s, and the type of family kitchen shown, she was using jars of tomatoes that she’d “put up” herself. In fact, I seem to recall seeing her using them in the opening scenes. And of course, the instructions part of the recipe isn’t shown, it’s below the hand-drawn line at the bottom of the picture.

So this recipe is just a starting point. I just thought it would be fun to play around with it. Maybe the real Joe will one day read this and can let me know how close I came. If it’s even his, or his nonna’s recipe.

So we’ve got all the ingredients here: canned whole tomatoes, onion, green bell pepper, apples (not cider ones, as we don’t have those here), garlic, basil, oregano, Italian hot fennel sausage (I made my own mixture, as I’ve still not found anyone who makes a good Italian hot, or sweet, fennel sausage here), olive oil, and parsley. I was making this for a big group, and so the quantities are about 1½ times what’s specified on the paper. I added in some ground pepper, and although not pictured, salt.

My Italian sausage: freshly ground pork shoulder and pork skin, mixed with a little pork fat, salt, pepper, chili flakes, aniseed, fennel seed, garlic, sage, and sugar.

Sautéed the onions in the olive oil until soft and translucent.

Added the sausage meat and browned it.

Decided to chop the bell pepper and grate the apples without their skin. I’ve since, as I’ve been playing around with it, left the apples unpeeled an chopped them rather than grating them - by the time this sauce cooks for a couple of hours, they fall apart anyway.

Added the rest of the ingredients except the fresh parsley.

Crushed those tomatoes up a bit.

And cooked over low heat for about two hours.

Added the chopped parsley and mixed it in.

And, tossed it with the spaghetti and some of the pasta cooking water.

And, served, with some finely grated cheese.

It was quite good. But I had some tweaks in mind after we ate, and discussed. And I’ve now made it again a couple of times and it’s actually become a recipe requested by some of our customers!

So what have I changed? I’ve cut back on the apples. It’s probably just the difference of not having cider apples, but the ones we have here just made the sauce too sweet. And as I said, I’ve left them with their skins on and just chopped them. I’ve replaced the dried basil and oregano with fresh. I just like the way the herbal notes come out better. I’ve also gone to using tagliatelle instead of spaghetti - this sauce just feels like it needs something with a little more heft to it. And, instead of finely grated parmigiano I’ve been using sheep’s milk pecorino, I just like the flavor better with this sauce.

So, Joe Scaravella, and all the folks at Enoteca Maria on Staten Island, I hope I did a decent job of recreating your sauce. At the least I was inspired by it. Assuming, again, that this recipe is even related to the one served at the restaurant. Which yes, actually still exists - though now, it appears, under the name Nonnas of the World, though a Google search for Enoteca Maria will take you right there.