So Many Dishes

I’m always learning, including about foods and cooking. But sometimes, a lack of knowledge ends up helping create something new. This evening‘s dinner was one of those dishes that I created by accident years ago and that is still a family favorite.

It was probably in the late 1980s that Ken’s mother gave me an Italian cookbook for Christmas. Titled Encyclopedia of Italian Cooking, it’s one of those books that looks like something from the old Borders or Barnes & Noble bargain rack. Measurements are given in metric and imperial as well as the American customary system. There are lots of photos. Many of the recipes that we’ve tried from the book have become favorites that we make again and again.

One of the recipes that we tried was called spaghetti with bacon-marjoram sauce. The actual recipe calls for pancetta, but, at the time, I’d never seen or heard of pancetta. I had no idea where I could find any, but the title said bacon. Why not just use bacon?

The dish was an immediate hit, and one that the kids asked for frequently. It was easy and quick, a perfect dinner for after a long day of work or something I could throw together quickly after soccer practice. I finally found pancetta at Whole Foods, but everyone preferred “the old way.”

I even cooked this dish when we lived in Prague in 1993. Canned tomato products were readily available at the Spanish-owned market where I usually shopped. There was a butcher shop across the street from our apartment building, although I felt intimidated going there. All the meats were in the case, and no one spoke any English, so I had to rely on my limited Czech. I learned that, if I asked for slanina (the Czech word for bacon), I got salt pork. I needed to ask for English bacon, which wasn’t the same as American bacon (but wasn’t like real English, as I discovered when we visited England). In the five months that we were in Prague, we only entertained Czech friends once, and this was the dish I made.

These days, I don’t even look at the recipe or measure anything. I cut three strips of thick-cut applewood smoked bacon into 1/2-inch pieces. I heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a large saucepan, then add the bacon and 4 coarsely chopped cloves of garlic. When the bacon is cooked but not browned, I add a 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes, a can of drained fire-roasted diced tomatoes, probably about a teaspoon or dried marjoram, and a half teaspoon of ground black pepper. I don’t add salt at that point; usually there’s enough salt from the bacon. I let it simmer while I cook a pound of spaghetti. I adjust the seasoning, if necessary, and serve with grated Parmesan. It will serve 4 to 6.

And because I now have Prague on my mind, here’s one of my favorite walks, across Charles Bridge. But it is never this empty 😄