Ragu'

I could be making ragu’ on a Wednesday afternoon, a Monday evening or any other day, it does not even matter: to me it always smells like “Sunday Morning” anyway. That was the day my mom used to make it, almost every week, basically for our Sunday lunch, traditionally the most important meal of the week, but also to freeze it and have it ready some other day for a quick pasta, being the working woman she has always been.

Making ragu’ is considered an art in Italy, a pretty complicated one too, especially in Napoli and around it. I come from up North instead, so you will forgive me if, as usual, I keep it nice and simple.

When I want my ragu’ to taste as much as possible as mom’s I use very little spices, if any at all: onion-celery-carrot-garlic, to begin with, beef and pork meat combined, wine, tomatoes, tomato paste, salt and pepper. When in season, maybe some basil. That’s it. Or actually no, that is not it. I am missing the main ingredient. That would be TIME. And I did not misspell thyme: I actually refer to those three or four hours that the sauce needs to slow cook in order to become a real ragu’. At least according to my mom, that is.

I used to get discouraged by long preparations of any sort but now I don’t feel that way anymore. I just do other things in the meanwhile to keep my anxiety and impatience under control. Of course I don’t do these kinds of things very often and when I do I make a lot so that I can have it ready to use whenever somebody in the family craves some special spaghetti, tagliatelle, lasagne or gnocchi. And in my family “special” means that they must smell like “Sunday Morning”.