crushing garlic with an imported Kuropean press; or whether they open a can of Ragú, toss in some garlic salt, and call it their own special recipe.
But similar to the explanations created to justify the appearance of nonrepresentational inkblots, the personality-revealing aspects of spaghetti sauce live in the details of the story any cook tells about his or her perfect sauce. I’ve noticed a frequent moral cast to each narrative straddling related senses of Tightness and righteousness: Every cook seems to believe that a successful sauce must be prepared one particular way and only thatway— their way of course. Passions run hot. Two cooks in the same kitchen can end up sparring like ferrets over a single spoonful of white sugar if one chef was raised to believe that adding granulated sweetener to spaghetti sauce brings out a certain mellow, sun-kissed, tomato-y tang, and the other scorns its addition as a disgraceful and inauthentic Chef Boyardee—ism.
But I’m less interested in some kind of pure ideal of spaghetti sauce—an Ultimate Spaghetti Sauce recipe culled from thousands of recipes passed down for generations and countless handwritten notations in the margins of store-bought cookbooks. No, I’m more interested in what you put in your sauce. Because I don’t think any kind of objectivity is possible. I think spaghetti sauce is something unique, like fingerprints. I think my sauce is mine and yours is yours, and, furthermore, I have a Fancy Spaghetti Sauce that I make for guests I’d like to seduce and a Modest Spaghetti Sauce that I make for myself at the end of the month, when I’m broke and hungry. You may have a couple of different sauces, too. I’d like to eat them—especially at the end of the month—instead of my own Modest Sauce, a sad mélange of canned tomato sauce, oregano, and old, soft onions. (Maybe I should try adding a spoonful of sugar.)
THE KEY TO my Fancy Spaghetti Sauce is sausage, honestly. Lots of sausage. And lots of different sausage, if you want to be decadent. Lamb, veal, pork, beef—even chicken or turkey. If it’s ground and spiced, throw it in! The more animals simmering in harmony on your range the better! In a stew of garlicky tomato sauce, creatures locked in perpetual combat in Nature can relax and enjoy each other’s company, putting their differences aside in pursuit of a common goal: deliciousness.
If you’re a vegetarian, I’m sorry, but you’re missing out. Sausage—real meat sausage, not the vegan kind made from sawdust, cornmeal, and animal-byproduct-free glue—is almost indescribably savory. You can dine alone on inexpensive supermarket sausage braised in a single skillet with sauerkraut and new potatoes, or you can dress up boutique meat-counter sausage with fresh herbs and breadcrumbs on a bed of field greens for guests, because sausage is as confident and charming as a bunch of offal stuffed into intestinal casing can be. Sausage says, I’m glad you came , and Don’t you took beautiful tonight . Sausage is both regal and wonderfully proletarian. Sausage is down-to-earth, unpretentious—comfortable grilled and served with only a dab of stone-ground mustard or dressed in a velvety blanket of gravy over peppered grits and eggs. Sausage is a special friend to poor people in particular—our patron saint of chopped fat and spice and connective tissue and scrap meat—because it lends a large amount of flavor to cheap and filling foods like rice and noodles and potatoes. Sausage is good . Sausage doed good. I love sausage!
You could make this recipe without sausage, if you wanted to make some kind of point about Not Needing Meat, Thank You Very Much—I Get Enough Protein From Combining Starches, And Besides, The Planet Can’t Afford It. But remember: Sausage will always take you back. Sausage has a lot of love to give. You just have to whisper Yed to it and sausage will sweep you away to gustatory paradise, I promise, no matter how many starches
But similar to the explanations created to justify the appearance of nonrepresentational inkblots, the personality-revealing aspects of spaghetti sauce live in the details of the story any cook tells about his or her perfect sauce. I’ve noticed a frequent moral cast to each narrative straddling related senses of Tightness and righteousness: Every cook seems to believe that a successful sauce must be prepared one particular way and only thatway— their way of course. Passions run hot. Two cooks in the same kitchen can end up sparring like ferrets over a single spoonful of white sugar if one chef was raised to believe that adding granulated sweetener to spaghetti sauce brings out a certain mellow, sun-kissed, tomato-y tang, and the other scorns its addition as a disgraceful and inauthentic Chef Boyardee—ism.
But I’m less interested in some kind of pure ideal of spaghetti sauce—an Ultimate Spaghetti Sauce recipe culled from thousands of recipes passed down for generations and countless handwritten notations in the margins of store-bought cookbooks. No, I’m more interested in what you put in your sauce. Because I don’t think any kind of objectivity is possible. I think spaghetti sauce is something unique, like fingerprints. I think my sauce is mine and yours is yours, and, furthermore, I have a Fancy Spaghetti Sauce that I make for guests I’d like to seduce and a Modest Spaghetti Sauce that I make for myself at the end of the month, when I’m broke and hungry. You may have a couple of different sauces, too. I’d like to eat them—especially at the end of the month—instead of my own Modest Sauce, a sad mélange of canned tomato sauce, oregano, and old, soft onions. (Maybe I should try adding a spoonful of sugar.)
THE KEY TO my Fancy Spaghetti Sauce is sausage, honestly. Lots of sausage. And lots of different sausage, if you want to be decadent. Lamb, veal, pork, beef—even chicken or turkey. If it’s ground and spiced, throw it in! The more animals simmering in harmony on your range the better! In a stew of garlicky tomato sauce, creatures locked in perpetual combat in Nature can relax and enjoy each other’s company, putting their differences aside in pursuit of a common goal: deliciousness.
If you’re a vegetarian, I’m sorry, but you’re missing out. Sausage—real meat sausage, not the vegan kind made from sawdust, cornmeal, and animal-byproduct-free glue—is almost indescribably savory. You can dine alone on inexpensive supermarket sausage braised in a single skillet with sauerkraut and new potatoes, or you can dress up boutique meat-counter sausage with fresh herbs and breadcrumbs on a bed of field greens for guests, because sausage is as confident and charming as a bunch of offal stuffed into intestinal casing can be. Sausage says, I’m glad you came , and Don’t you took beautiful tonight . Sausage is both regal and wonderfully proletarian. Sausage is down-to-earth, unpretentious—comfortable grilled and served with only a dab of stone-ground mustard or dressed in a velvety blanket of gravy over peppered grits and eggs. Sausage is a special friend to poor people in particular—our patron saint of chopped fat and spice and connective tissue and scrap meat—because it lends a large amount of flavor to cheap and filling foods like rice and noodles and potatoes. Sausage is good . Sausage doed good. I love sausage!
You could make this recipe without sausage, if you wanted to make some kind of point about Not Needing Meat, Thank You Very Much—I Get Enough Protein From Combining Starches, And Besides, The Planet Can’t Afford It. But remember: Sausage will always take you back. Sausage has a lot of love to give. You just have to whisper Yed to it and sausage will sweep you away to gustatory paradise, I promise, no matter how many starches
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