Grandma's Spaghetti Recipe

Grandma's Spaghetti...

Anyone in my family who hears, "I am making Grandma's spaghetti", knows exactly what it means, a thick, spicy meat sauce with cinnamon, allspice, chili, sugar, tomatoes, over a base of crumbled ground beef and pork sausage. It is made all day, simmered to an brick red unctuous thickness and stirred into wide egg noodles. I would tell you the full recipe but then I would have to kill you.

Well not really, but not too many people have the recipe outside of our family. "Family" means my mom, and dad, her two sisters, all their children, my two brothers and their wives and children, my daughter, any aunts and uncles; some of those lovely people are no longer here. As of this Christmas, the list includes my former husband as well. It was my Christmas present to him, for he asked for the recipe.

Actually, the recipe has been published. My mom wrote for the Officer's Wives club newspaper in the 1960's, I cannot remember what base. I have a copy of her recipe as it was printed, and somewhere perhaps several other retired military wives have that as part of their repitoire. But I know that not all the recipes will be the same.

I grew up with this, it was a comfort food staple and company dish when Mom needed time. She would make it ahead, and often I had the job to stir it. I was very careful not to ruin it and took the job seriously.

The recipe however, like a treasure map split in half, or a purloined letter stuck inside an old cookbook, has changed depending upon which family and generation wrote it. My Grandma had the recipe in the 1940-50's and gave it to my mom. I have Grandma's version and she calls for a full pound of butter, full fat ground beef and pork sausage, plus some canned mushrooms. Mom's recipe adds a can of tomato soup. My aunt uses chili flakes in place of chili powder. Growing up with the rubber latex texture of canned mushrooms, it was a huge decision for me to begin to use fresh mushrooms when they became easily available. I realize that the canned mushrooms were what was available in the Great Era of Canned Goods, and all houswives eagerly embraced the steel pantry. Amazingly some friends still use canned mushrooms today, but I do not know why for any reason they would.

One year I decided to get a copy from each sister-in-law and found that each woman had a slightly different recipe. Was it a result of what was passed down? Did my mother intentionally give each person something different? I really doubt it because she was a natural archivist, but why were they different? Maybe there was a huge secret which meant only the female descendents but not married-into women relatives had the exact recipe. But no, upon questioning my aunt, she also had a slightly different recipe. Ah Ha! It was my Grandmother who passed on different versions! The mystery continues for only my aunt is left from the second generation.

What I DO know is how I have changed the recipe myself. I buy wide yolk-free "egg" noodles now. Over the years I have included tabasco, reduced the chili powder and fresh grind the nutmeg, allspice and cloves. I use canned fire-roasted tomatoes and not tomato soup. Half the butter; just cannot melt one pound into the meat. Fresh mushrooms, plain old white ones, no fancy-schmancy shitakes or portabellos. Extra lean ground beef. And, in a radical departure about a decade ago, no pork. Many of my dear friends are Moslem, and since this is such a celebratory dish for company I eliminated it for them. I can literally make this in my sleep, and in fact have. One year, we arrived back from a trip to Turkey only about 6 hours before our friends from Turkey arrived by different flight. I bought the food and cooked for them while on sleep-deprived auto-pilot because it was one dish I could count on. It was still damn good.

About four years ago, we went to a great chili cook off between a group of foodies. There was green chili with chicken, full on beef no beans, all beans and no beef and then an epiphany: a chili mac...meat sweet spicy chili in a tomato base served over wide egg noodles with a heavy load of cheese on top. Was THIS the origin of Grandma's spaghetti! My chefs for this dish were from Chicago, and had moved west with their recipe. My Grandma was born in Salt Lake City and maybe, just maybe it came west with some Mormons to Salt Lake where she got the recipe from her mom, moved it to Nevada and the rest is family history. Who knew? Who knows?

So, like a slightly mutated DNA sample, or genetic distribution of a taste gene, everyone in my family has the recipe but does not have the recipe. We should have a family cookoff! I had better win.

I had only been in my home this fall for two weeks and my Nevada aunt and uncle arrived. Surrounded by boxes, I was thrilled to inaugurate my new life with some family here and made of course, Grandma's Spaghetti. Aunt Jeanette was thrilled and Uncle Bob, a former covert photographer for the reserve, pronounced it worthy. Yea me.

And this Christmas, the night we made the Christmas cookies, I cooked up another batch for my daughter and I. About every two months I need to make a batch so this means a party in mid February I think; perhaps another chili spaghetti cook off. And, it was my sincere pleasure to give my former husband a copy for his Christmas present. Perhaps he and my daughter will make it sometime. But, discerning readers, did I give him the whole recipe?

That is between me and the books.