The other day, I was flipping through my grandmother’s recipe cards with Ben, trying to lay out our month of eating. “You know the thing I love most about these recipes?” he said. “They’re distinctly Italian-American.” I questioned what he meant by that. “Your grandmother uses things like Hunt’s tomato paste in her recipes. Your mother uses Red Pack tomatoes in her Sunday sauce.”
I flipped to the baked macaroni recipe card that held the steps for a delicious mac and cheese my mother used to make with baked flounder. (Not necessarily “Italian,” but a regular on the rotation of recipes in my Italian-American home growing up.) It calls for a layer of American cheese slices to be layered on top of the final product before baking. “See!” Ben exclaimed.
It was an interesting observation, one which I’m sure I realized in the past but had never given much thought to. I called my mother a little later on to ask her about it. Her answer was, like these recipes, simple. “When my grandparents came over here, they had to work with what they had,” she said. There weren’t the bevy of Italian markets we have now. In fact, most of my family members came over to the states shortly before the stock market crashed. My grandparents were born during the Depression, which meant their families had even less access to the food from the country they came from. So it makes sense why so many of my family recipes are simple, and utilize “American” ingredients.
All of this was bubbling in my brain when my friend Leah sent me this story by Jess Eng for The Washington Post. (Actually, a few friends sent it to me, but Leah was the first.) It discusses the links between Asian cuisine and Italian cuisine, and how these two cultures have consistently borrowed from and been influenced by one another. The article begins by introducing us to Pearl (Yiping) Ma who uses a box of Barilla linguini to make her kao leng mian.
Her video starts off by saying that the resulting dish will “traumatize Italians,” and later on she slices through her cooked linguini with aplomb. (Breaking pasta is seen as a mortal sin to some Italian chefs, both home and professional.) Pearl goes on, however, to explain her reasoning. “Pasta is a lot easier to get in America than Asian noodles,” she says in a voiceover as she whips up her meal. “That is just the truth.”
In the Post article, Pearl explains that, when she was homesick for the food of her native northern China, she found herself gravitating to Italian-American meals. They offered a similar taste of comfort, thanks to their saucy, cheesy, starchy flavors. She has since started incorporating tastes of Italian food into her Chinese recipes, and vice versa.
And the truth is, there is a lot of connective tissue between Asian and Italian recipes. “Both really focus on minimal ingredients and allow the main ingredients to shine. They’re both umami and savory,” Calvin Eng, the owner of Bonnie’s in Brooklyn, told The Post in that same article. “In both cuisines, there’s not much acid, there’s not much heat. They use a lot of salt. They’re preserved in fermented products, whether that’s anchovies or salted fish to kind of enhance dishes.”
I cannot tell you how beautiful I found this story, especially since I am in the middle of this journey through my grandmother’s recipe box. It’s the 21st century version my great-grandmother’s technique: using what you have available to you to create your version of home. It’s something immigrants have been doing for generations. And I think the idea of working with what’s in front of you is something we can apply to our lives, actually.
It’s part of the reason why I love cooking so much. (And apologies in advance for how sappy this next paragraph is going to be.) It’s about connection, to both to the past and the present. It brings people together, and offers them comfort, and provides links to other cultures. It’s something we all do each and every day. We enter our kitchens and work magic and in the end our bellies are full. It’s crazy to me that I’m following recipes that my grandmother put together in her own kitchen 100 years ago, cobbled together from what she had on hand. And it’s incredible that that ritual is still being followed by immigrants in their kitchens, too.
Which brings us to this week’s recipe: Pasta con Sarda. It’s a delicious, smoky, meaty dish that is quintessentially Sicilian. I hated as a child and love as an adult. The sauce requires only three ingredients: onion, tomato sauce, and a can of sarda, which is seasoned sardines. (I know, sardines are triggering for some people. But have I steered you wrong yet?) Sarda can be hard to find in your typical supermarkets, but you can get it on Instacart, Amazon, or, if you’re like me, by browsing your friendly neighborhood Italian market.
Sarda isn’t served with cheese, typically. Instead, you make muddica, which are “fixed” breadcrumbs. My mother makes them with garlic powder, but I opted to try some grated garlic instead. I also tossed some parsley on top to freshen the whole thing a bit.
It’s one of those simple recipes that makes me feel very connected to my roots. (And it has the salted fish that Calvin mentioned was a crossover between Cantonese and Italian foods.) When I made it this week, I felt like my grandmother was in the kitchen alongside me. Let it be a reminder that things don’t always need to be complicated in order to be delicious. I find real comfort in that.
Here’s what’s cooking
Pasta con Sarda
INGREDIENTS
For the pasta
1 lb noodle pasta of your choice (I like a thicker noodle, like bucatini)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 14.5 oz can of Cuoco seasoning for macaroni with sardines
Parsley, roughly chopped, for topping (optional)
For the muddica
1 1/2 cups of breadcrumbs
1 glove garlic, grated
1 Tbsp olive oil
INSTRUCTIONS
Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in your pan until it shimmers. Add in 1 clove grated garlic and mix until coated with olive oil. Turn down the heat and add in 1 1/2 cups of breadcrumbs. Toast, stirring occasionally, until golden brown. Set aside to cool, and wipe out the pan.
Add 2 Tbsp olive oil back into your pan and heat until shimmering. Add your chopped medium onion and sauté until tender.
Add your 2 Tbsp tomato paste and your can of sarda. Heat through until the tomato paste is a slightly darker shade of red, about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat.
Meanwhile, in a large pot, boil your pasta in well-salted water according to package instructions. Strain, reserving 1 cup of pasta water.
When the pasta is strained, toss it into the pan with your sarda mixture and turn the burners on low. Stir to coat, adding a few splashes of pasta water as needed to help everything stick.
Serve hot with the muddica for topping. A little fresh, chopped parsley tastes excellent on top as well.
Have this, it’ll make you feel better
Abortion rights had a major win in deep-red Kansas this week, but the nearby state of Oklahoma has a near-total ban. The Roe Fund helps Oklahomans shoulder the financial burden of seeking an out-of-state abortion. You can donate to them here.
Something that made me smile this week: The Great Barrier Reef has seen massive growth in its coral cover—more than it’s seen in four decades. The reef is still vulnerable to climate change, of course, but hey, we’ll take the good news as it comes.
I’ve been enjoying the podcast Positively Dreadful, which is in the Crooked Media family of podcasts. Each week, the host talks to an expert about a piece of news that has everyone spiraling and tries to put it into context in order to make it seem less terrifying. It’s an amazing anecdote to the panic-driving headlines we’ve been seeing pretty much every single day lately.