Some things are sacred. Like the smell of Sunday dinner taking shape even before you had your morning coffee. That’s the way it used to be in a lot of Italian homes.

I remember the smell of onions hitting the pan as I woke up, my mother already at the stove getting that “Sunday sauce” ready to cook just before going to church.
That sauce was made more than rich and succulent with the addition of pork sausage, spareribs, meatballs and braciole. All that meat simmered together for a long time in the “passata” (tomato puree) that was put up the summer before with Dad’s homegrown plum tomatoes. For Italians, making Sunday sauce is still standard practice but the younger generations are more inclined to use ready made tomato sauce, minus the meat as attitudes about food mores change.

I would venture to say that the whole idea of a family sitting down to weekly Sunday dinner is now just a nostalgic pipe dream.

We are much too busy these days with sports, social media and work to squeeze in any time for a sit down and conversation. And that is a pity because we are just cheating ourselves out of those sacred memories that connect us all to the past.


Source => https://www.ciaoitalia.com