By Al Drinkle
We're all guessing at life, just trying to do the best that we can. We learn to avoid some things and embrace others; we affect aphorisms and profess certain beliefs; but we're generally going about our business almost at random and it's all just going to turn out how it turns out. Sometimes cooking is like this as well.
My mother prepared the vast majority of the meals in my household growing up, and she still retains the impressive capacity to prepare a vast banquet of nutritious dishes for as many people as necessary. My father, on the other hand, generally avoided the kitchen but had a few specialties that he would occasionally concoct. One of these was his spaghetti sauce, or sauces, as I don't believe it was ever the same twice.
There's an old winegrower dictum that goes somewhere along the lines of, “one must have the courage to do nothing". I interpret this to mean that once you've done everything that actually is necessary, then you can have the courage to do nothing and let the wine pursue the path that you've set it upon. When it came to pasta sauce, my father either lacked the courage to do nothing, or he vehemently disagreed with the aforementioned adage as it applied to his cooking.
My father would begin making his pasta sauce in the early afternoon. There's nothing unusual about this as cooking the ingredients down results in a more concentrated, "knit” flavour. But his range of ingredients seemed interminable and included several late additions. If a typical sauce of this sort consists of olive oil, garlic, chiles, onions, tomatoes, oregano, and salt, one could achieve the desired balance of ingredients relatively quickly before proceeding to let the sauce simmer for some time. My father's sauce might begin this way, but then new ideas would come to him, or irresistible agents of improvement would be discovered in the fridge, pantry, or garden.
Perhaps I would walk into the kitchen for a glass of water, my nostrils arrested by the enticing aromas of tonight's dinner and I'd find my father grating carrots next to a plate of chopped zucchini. “What are those for?” I'd ask. He'd take the question as rhetorical and simply nod to the pot on the stove.
Sometimes he'd be seen adding a knob of butter a couple of hours into the process. Tasty if untraditional, I suppose, but then I'd hear my brother ask about the honey that he was drizzling into the pot. Or he'd be cooking down eggplant on a neighbouring burner, its destiny inevitably being a late addition to the sauce. He'd discover a florette of broccoli at the back of the fridge and briefly contemplate whether or not it was past its prime before chopping it up and chucking it in. Pineapple? Why not. A bit of cabbage? Couldn't hurt for textural diversity. A splash of red wine? Great idea, and pour some for the chef too. A dollop of cream? Who knows…
Then he'd hit the spice drawer. Maybe the initial portion of oregano was insufficient, and some thyme flowers might add a nice zip. Sage, tarragon, marjoram, a couple of bay leaves, and might as well chop up and chuck in some rosemary and parsley. My mother might catch him plucking a couple cloves from a jar and suggest that he put them back. But definitely throw a pinch of cayenne pepper in there—do you want this pasta sauce to have flavour, or what?!
A couple of wrinkly mushrooms would be discovered in one of the fridge drawers, swiftly sliced up and added to the mix as everything simmered away. Now it was time to visit my mother's garden and collect basil, mint, summer savoury, fresh parsley to augment the dried version, chives, and dill. What's that over there? Are those peas ripe? Quick, shell them and chuck them in! Some beet greens too, and maybe a bit of chopped kale.
Sometimes I felt that the additions would only cease when dinnertime interrupted his perpetual improvisations. At this point, my father would crank the heat for one final chance to reduce the liquid (more than anything, he loathed when water would run from a plated pasta dish), boil the pasta itself, and proudly serve the extended family while citing statistics of time investment, offering playful braggadocious statements, and encouraging everyone to duly prepare themselves for the unprecedented splendour that was about to transpire at the table.
Just like our arbitrary strategies to navigate the callous strangeness of life, the pasta sauce generally turned out alright. And just like my father, it always had a lot of personality.
