Spaghetti Sauce

I grew up in a little town in WA that was 85% Italian. And by Italian I mean 'old-style Italian' - the mommas wore black, all shop attendants could speak the language, arranged marriages were the norm and every family joined together for both the pig kill and the tomato harvest and bottling of the sauce. It was all very normal to me but I wish I had some of those moments again.

I say this because the original Italian's in the town were WWII prisoners that decided to stay. By the time the late 70's came around, some started to travel back to the old country to see their family for the last time only to realize that the Italy that they left, and continued to perpetuate, had long since gone. Let's face it, Italy in the 70's was ... well, Italy in the 70's, not the 40's.

To get to my point, we had two Italian families as neighbors. On one side was the Cochiavera's (hopefully the spelling is close) who had the most amazing vegetable garden - including exotic things borlotti beans and I am sure a complete range of other things that I would just kill for today. On the other side was the ... not the Ferraro's, not the Italiano's, not the Scambelluri's, not the Panetta's, oh, I can't even remember their name now which is most embarrassing.

I am sure we were invited to dinner more than once but I only remember one time and we had spaghetti to die for. I have tried for the last 20 years to replicate the sauce and haven't even got close - mainly because it is the memory of an unsophisticated child of maybe 6 or 7 who wasn't into culinary appreciation at that time (aside from developing a passionate dislike for Brussel sprouts but that is another story that ranks with the spider one).

I assume that the actual pasta was homemade because this was the day and age when we "real Australians" bought our spaghetti in a can with a Heinz label on it :-)

It is the sauce that haunts me.... again I assume this was all homemade, from homegrown produce. It definitely had tomatoes in it, and I assume was bolognese. On the edge of my plate were three drops of tomato sauce and oil that had separated and fascinated me incredibly. And the taste was to die for. From there you would have to step in my head to experience the dish because I just can't get a better description than that out which is one of the big problems I have in trying to get a similar recipe.

And again, why do I mention this now - because (in my very sleep deprived state) I was cooking a chicken fillet at lunchtime, with a little fried onion, and one of the components of the aroma brought it all back. And no the sauce wasn't so easy as to contain either of those ingredients (as such) and I have cooked both ingredients a thousand times over the years and have never experienced the feeling. Somewhere, in my somewhat deep somnambulistic state, receptors were triggered and I am now in search of a memory again.

I would give my first-born child to eat that meal again...