Just before she left last week, my mother-in-law insisted I
take down her special recipe for la
pummarola – a Neapolitan tomato sauce that has nearly as many variations as
the endlessly variable ragu from Bologna.
Her particular take on la
pummarola: chop up fresh tomatoes; cut up onion, celery and carrot into
large bits; tear up some basil; put everything in a pot; simmer for several
hours; pass through a blender or food mill; serve over spaghetti with a swirl
of olive oil.
An American friend who had dropped by for an afternoon espresso
and a little bilingual, pantomimed gossip with my in-laws and me, commented
with perplexity on the lack of specifics in my mother-in-law’s recipe –
indefinite quantities, no set cooking time.
How would I ever manage to duplicate it?
Um, actually, I won’t.
I won’t, in part, because the ingredients my mother-in-law
has at her disposal in Genoa, Italy and the ones I have in San Diego, California
are different.
The small-leafed, sweet basil
she gets from the fruttivendolo in Pra
is unavailable here and I have found no acceptable substitute (not even the
little bunches sold at Chino Farm). The
Taggiasca olive oil she uses is locally produced and fresh (made no more than a
couple of months before she buys it), whereas the olive oil I use has traveled
six-thousand miles and may have been sitting on the grocery store shelf a
couple of years. (I avoid locally
produced olive oils because they don’t measure up).
And I won’t, in part, because I don’t want to.
Fresh tomatoes are out of season and the ones
available at my grocer’s simply won’t do.
So, I’ll use canned San Marzanos run through a food mill. And I’ll nix the basil. Also, because there's no meat in the recipe to add texture or sweetness, and I prefer the sweetness of carrots to the
astringency of celery, I’ll use a bit more of the former and a bit less of
the latter. Finally, I’m short on time
these days, so I’ll make the sauce in my pressure cooker.
My friend is floored.
No basil? Canned tomatoes? A friggin’ pressure cooker? She’s sure it’ll suck. She bids my in-laws a pleasant return flight
and leaves, frowning and muttering to herself, to me, to the plants, “A friggin’
pressure cooker?”
A few days later I invite her over for lunch – a simple plate
of cheese ravioli gently tossed in my version of la pummarola with a sprinkling of Parmigiano. She does not mutter when she leaves, nor does
she frown.
And I positively gloat.
12:15:50 AM 
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