Mother Sauce: Authentic Italian-American Family Recipes & the Inspiring Story of Women Chefs | Perfect for Home Cooking, Family Dinners & Cultural Food History

Vividly affectionate, this is a tribute to Italian American women and the food they have been serving for generations. By turns hearty, thrifty, celebratory, and adaptive, their cooking has always been personal and influential, to say nothing of tasty.

Lucinda Scala Quinn writes, "I am the proud great-granddaughter of a pistol-packing, beer-swigging, gambling, boss-of-her block Italian American contessa who lived in turn-of-the-century East Rome, New York." 

She brings that bold voice to more than 100 recipes and notes and sidebars which offer clarity and context for making and serving dishes such as:

• Sunday sauce, often called gravy, and the anchor of many other dishes
• Prosciutto bread, aka lard bread, aka Brooklyn bread
• Utica Riggies, an upstate New York dish featuring chicken and rigatoni
• Savory Easter pie, filled with greens and ricotta
• Seven fishes seafood stew, aka Cioppino
• Orange olive oil cake with whipped ricotta frosting

For many recipes, their provenance is a handwritten card passed down in one branch or another of the author's family. But there are contributions from throughout the Italian American diaspora, as well as from Quinn's own kitchen, where she continues the creative adaptations of her foremothers.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.