Many a time as a very small boy I watched my distinguished Piedmontese grandfather grandly direct the cook. This is the way our spaghetti sauce was prepared. Buy about three or four pounds of solid meat from the round, cut thick. Ask for the “eye of the beef.” It is inexpensive. Cut little pockets in it and insert bits of fat bacon in some. In others stuff sage, thyme, parsley and bay leaf with salt and pepper to taste. Sometimes I spread thinly with mustard, the prepared sort; covering the top. A clove of garlic tucked in with the seasoning goes well, if you have Wop ancestry. Pale people use onions. But surely one or the other.
Grease well a deep iron skillet with iron top, the pot-roast utensil. When the gravy begins to drip add a little water, but not much. The steam makes the meat tender and brings out all the flavors in the little pockets. Baste from time to time just to get the aroma of the simmering mess and sharpen your appetite. Take a little wire and jab it in the roast after about an hour and twenty minutes and you’ll find out whether it is tender and juicy enough.
Put the big pot on and get your water boiling fast. Add a good sized kitchen spoon of salt. Better salt the water to taste. Throw in a pound of Italian made spaghetti ... the Farina spaghetti. It requires a certain kind of wheat to make good macaroni. Boil for twenty minutes. Drain off water.
To the rich gravy you will find the roast swimming in add a small can of tomato paste, stirring in slowly. As this is poured over the spaghetti add grated Roman cheese. You will get it all properly dressed by using two forks, lifting and dropping the strands. Serve piping hot with an automatic revolver at hand so that the man who cuts his can be disposed of promptly. Some twine the spaghetti about the fork. Others just lead a mass of it to the face and bite off what they want at that particular mastication.
A good salad and Italian bread, to be secured at any small dealer’s where the boss sings Santa Lucia in a thin high voice as he slices the salami, goes well with the roast. This layout will last an old bachelor or a deserted husband two or three days. It’s grand when it’s warmed up in a boiler.
LXXII
F. X. Leyendecker
VEAU SAUTÉ MARENGO
During my Paris days (school days) I became very fond of two dishes and they still remain my favorites: