I Come from Stirring Stock
My grandmother, Vovo Costa, taught me how to have patience with food, how to be in the moment at the stove, how to see stirring as meditative. Lessons I still use daily.
I COME FROM STIRRING STOCK. That is to say, my people are stirrers. It’s how my grandmother, Vovo Costa, cooked. She stood, facing the stove, for hours in her pink housecoat and pink slippers, her tiny hand planted on her hip, singing in her thin, reedy voice.
She stirred all kinds of Portuguese comestibles: spicy stuffing with chunks of homemade chouriço; her famous pink (of course) chicken, rice, and potato soup; and vats and vats of kale soup.
When she grew too old to stir her soups and stews for long, I’d do it for her. By then, age had stolen a few inches from her, but she still managed to peer over the tops of the pots and instruct, “Mais devagar, queirdo, mais devagar.” Slower, sweetheart, slower.
I think a propensity to love stirring is genetic. When the temperature outdoors nosedives, all I want to do is hover over a simmering pot and stir.
And with all that has been going on lately, I’ve been craving a long-simmered, deeply flavored Bolognese sauce. The kind that takes no prisoners. The kind that makes your guests plead for the secret. The kind that leaves you on the couch, unable to move because you didn’t have enough sense to stop after your second helping of seconds.
So my hunt was on for a Portuguese-grandmother-approved Bolognese sauce–rich, meaty, slow-cooked, constantly stirred–to quench that nagging craving.
This narrowed the field exponentially. Anything from a 30-minute- meal proselytizer was clearly out of contention (too brief), as were recipes from TV chefs and hosts (Too fussy.). I found—and promptly rejected—a recipe in Cook’s Illustrated that got the job done in two hours. (Two hours? I can’t find my way out of our pantry in two hours.)
☞ MAKE THE RECIPE: MARCELLA HAZAN’S BOLOGNESE SAUCE
Then, while sitting in front of my cookbook collection, I was reminded of another short, sturdy woman who also comes from stirring stock: L’Imperatrice—The Empress—Marcella Hazan.
I immediately downloaded Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. (Why I didn’t already have a copy is a question for another day.) Flipping through the book revealed a woman who spoke her mind, knew right from wrong, and who, if you disagreed with what she had to say, well, that was your problem. (Not at all unlike Momma Leite.)
I knew The Empress wouldn’t let me down. And she didn’t.Her Bolognese sauce clocks in at a whopping six hours. That’s longer than some relationships I’ve had. I did change it up a bit….BUT with her blessing. (Yup, I wrote her and she wrote me back.)
I’m certain if Vovo had discovered Marcella and her Bolognese sauce in her lifetime, she would’ve petitioned the Pope to make us Italian. It’s her kind of dish.
As I leaned against the stove with my iPad in its kitchen condom (a Ziploc bag), a gorgeous sauce burbling down to sweet goodness in the pot, I was connecting to my past—to my stirrers. And to a craving even deeper—to be with Vovo just one more time.
Chow,
P.S. Won’t you consider tapping the ♥️, restacking this post, and/or leaving a comment? It takes but a moment, but its impact is enormous! xx
I come from a long line of non cooks, on both sides. Nanny Steadman was known to have puffed rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and passed down those skills to my grandmother and mother. Nana on my dad’s side never found a piece of meat she couldn’t destroy. I learned to cook in self defense by watching PBS.
My grandmother was Ukrainian and cooked all the Ukrainian favorites: Kapusta, Varanika, Borscht, and homemade Kielbasa. But her Easter and Christmas breads, which she called babkas, were, in my opinion, the best. When I was little, I sat and watched her mix flour, raisins, and other magic ingredients. After she kneaded it and punched it, it miraculously grew! She always gave me a piece of dough and although I punched it much more than she did, mine never grew. As I got older, she let me add the ingredients. She never measured. Then older still, we took turns kneading. Along with the loaves of bread, she also made some smaller breads using a muffin tin. We kids could not wait until those hot, delicious buns emerged from the oven. I still make that bread every Easter and every Christmas, and now my daughter has carried on that wonderful tradition with her 6 year old daughter helping, as I once did with my grandmother.