Even though I make a mean marinara, I usually order it with spaghetti or ravioli at Italian restaurants. There’s no meat in marinara, so I always think it’s healthier.
I recently realized I didn’t actually know the meaning of “marinara.” So I went online and found many definitions. They boil down to this: “The word comes from the Italian word marinara, meaning ‘sailor style,’ because it was a simple, long-lasting sauce sailors could prepare on ships” … “possibly invented by sailors or their wives as a quick, hearty meal.”
The marinara recipe I use came from an old pamphlet, Louisiana’s Fabulous Foods and How to Cook Them. It was part of the spaghetti recipe for “Stuffed Steak Marinara à la Pittari” from the now defunct T. Pittari’s restaurant, which opened in 1895. It’s made with just garlic, olive oil, whole canned tomatoes, salt, and pepper.
I knew Ann Barnes, owner of Corinne’s Very Special Catering, could tell me a thing or two about the sauce. She’s a fan. “I like the flavor. Fresh and tomato-y.”:
It’s lighter, she says, “unlike a heavier sauce like meat gravy or puttanesca, a tomato sauce that has anchovies.”
Barnes, who made marinara recently for the pasta station at an “Indian-Italian wedding,” says an Italian woman she knew in Little Rock, Arkansas, is responsible for her marinara prowess today. “When I was dating my husband — now 58 years [married] — she said, ‘You’ve got to make the marinara.’ I didn’t even know what that was. We grew up and called it ‘spaghetti sauce.’ Most of the time we put meat in it.”
The woman told her, “You’ve got to learn to make THE SAUCE.” And she made sure Barnes learned how to make it. “When I was a young bride, she gave me an Italian cookbook.” She still “pretty much” goes by that recipe, but “I might have put in my own touch here and there.”
I visited some of Memphis’ iconic Italian restaurants to try their spaghetti marinaras.
I was hooked on Valle’s when I tried it for the first time at the lunch-only restaurant at 1636 Winchester Road. The marinara is thick and bright red.
“It’s my mother’s recipe,” says owner Louie Valle. “But she got it from my grandmother on my father’s side.”
Valle’s recipe isn’t exactly the one that came from his grandmother. “It has evolved a little bit.”
The recipe his sister, Doris Fragale, uses, from the early 1950s, is probably closest to his grandmother’s. Doris and her husband, Ray, were two of the original owners of Valle’s when it was called Valle’s Italian Rebel.
“Ours is a combination of different styles of tomato, like some crushed tomatoes, puree, and paste all blended together with all the seasonings that go along with it,” Valle says.
They use the basic ingredients found in many marinaras, including salt, pepper, garlic, basil, oregano, parsley, and onions. Of course, Louie has his secret ingredients. “I’ve added my own couple of little things I think blend in there well. It’s been consistent like that for 40-plus years.”
About 25 percent of his customers order marinara sauce, he says. Some may order the meatballs on top, so they’re still getting some meat. But, like me, Valle believes marinara is a healthier option. “You’ve got red meat in there, so [with marinara sauce] you’re staying away from the beef.”
Then there’s the classic spaghetti marinara at Pete & Sam’s at 3886 Park Avenue. I asked Sammy Bomarito, one of the owners, about it. “We’ve been making it the same way for as long as I can remember,” he says. “I don’t think it’s changed over the years.
“We use whole peeled tomatoes. We crush those up, grind them, and then add garlic, oregano, basil, olive oil, Parmesan, salt, pepper.”
They use Stanislaus brand tomatoes. “They’re consistent, quality. Unmatched,” Bomarito says.
A sweeter marinara is used in their eggplant Parmesan. “It kind of complements the eggplant.”
Like most of the restaurateurs I talked to, he said fewer people ask for spaghetti marinara. “Compared to our meat sauce, that’s less than 10 percent.”
Mario Grisanti, owner of Dino’s Grill at 645 North McLean Boulevard, describes their marinara sauce as “definitely chunkier.” You can see chunks of celery and tomato in it.
It’s “looser,” not as thick as some other marinaras, he says. “It doesn’t look like tomato paste.”
Some people add a lot of water when they start cooking marinara “to get all the flavoring going.” Grisanti does this, then reduces it down to get rid of most of the water, “so it’s not soup. … The reason it takes long is because you’re cooking all the water out that you added at the beginning.”
I’m also a big fan of Dino’s ravioli with marinara sauce. The raviolis are stuffed with spinach instead of meat. That seems like another healthier option.
Dino’s marinara is made with salt, pepper, garlic, Italian seasoning, olive oil, celery, onions, and petite diced tomatoes. “Making a gravy every day, it’s a time-consuming process. Over the years, we’ve done it more efficiently with canned stuff rather than boiling tomatoes, peeling them, squashing them.
“A lot of people ask if we put sugar in it, for some reason. That’s a ‘no.’ And they ask if we put red wine in it. And that’s a ‘no.’”
They use marinara on their ravioli, in their pizza sauce, and in their eggplant polenta torta. Describing that dish, Rudy Grisanti, Mario’s dad, says they put marinara on the plate. “We put the polenta on it, and then it gets a slice of mozzarella cheese. On top of that we put a scoop of the Italian spinach. Arranged around it, we put the fried eggplant medallions.”
Between 5 and 10 percent of their customers ask for marinara over the meat sauce, Mario says. But, he says, “Our gravies are essentially the exact same thing for our meat and marinara. The only difference is we put our beef in one, the other we put petite diced tomatoes in.”
As far as he knows, this is the same recipe used by his grandfather, Frank Benedetti, at his restaurant, the State Cafe at Main Street and Beale. Benedetti opened that restaurant in 1941, Mario says. “It’s the only way I’ve ever made it.”
Coletta’s Italian Restaurant is celebrating its 102nd anniversary this year. For about a third of that time, they’ve been serving marinara sauce, says Jerry Coletta, owner of the restaurant at 1063 South Parkway East.
“We didn’t have marinara back in the day,” Coletta says. “We just had meat sauce. We were getting calls for meatless sauce, and we thought, ‘We have to have that.’ I know we’ve had it on the menu 34 years.”
Like the other restaurants, spaghetti marinara isn’t a top item. “For every 100 gallons of meat sauce we make, we probably make 10 gallons of the marinara. So it’s probably 10 to one.”
Their recipe? “It came from my wife. And it came from her mother. I don’t know where her mother got it, though.”
They use canned crushed tomatoes, he says. They also include basil, onion, and garlic. “We don’t put oregano in it,” he says.
They also use marinara sauce in spaghetti and their linguine marinara. “It’s kind of like fettuccine, but not as wide. A flat, narrow noodle. Like spaghetti, but not round.”
The marina is also used over manicotti. “Light marinara sauce goes very well with manicotti, a tubular pasta filled with cheese filling.
“We also serve it with fried cheese sticks. I probably eat that once a week,” Coletta says.
Then there’s that special time of year. “During Lent I eat a lot of marinara. On Fridays, Catholics can’t eat meat. It is a go-to over [meat].”
To get the right mood for the accompanying photo above, Coletta’s manager, Sharlene Burns, helped me set up. I figured they had one of those Bell’Agio Chianti bottles in the wicker basket. They did. I posed that with a lit votive candle in a red jar, a glass of red wine, and their great red marinara sauce on the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. Bellissima!