SOUTHERN RECIPE RESTORATION PROJECT: Spaghetti on side at Grandma’s

The contributor: Marlene Taylor, 61, retired showroom manager from Grayson.

The story: “My grandmother’s side of the family, the Estes, had deep roots in Troup County. They lived there during the War Between the States. But by the Depression, work was hard to find, so they moved to Birmingham and then they moved again to Atlanta. They settled in Grant Park, right across from the zoo. My parents actually met at a dance at the pavilion over there at the park.

“I lived in a duplex with my parents on one side and my grandmother [Alice] Inez Estes Taylor lived on the other. She was one of those cooks who didn’t use recipes. She cooked by feel and memory because she learned to cook by watching her mother. I wasn’t interested in learning when I was really young, but by the time I was in my 20s, I started writing down Grandmother’s recipes while she cooked.

“She’d start cooking on a Sunday morning, stop, go to Sunday school and church, then come back home and finish Sunday dinner. She’d fry crookneck squash and she’d sometimes make corn bread. One thing she used to make was spaghetti and pork chops. To tell the truth, she really didn’t know what Italian spaghetti was. She never went to restaurants like that. In fact she called it eye-talian. And when she cooked the spaghetti, it was a side dish. There would be that, biscuits, butter beans, salad.

“One thing though, before Del Monte canned tomatoes, she used to use fresh tomatoes and peppers from her garden. It was so good. To this day, if I get tomatoes in my garden, I make my spaghetti sauce from scratch, to go with the pork chops. But to tell the truth, although it tastes better with fresh tomatoes, it’s just easier to use canned. You don’t have to deal with all those seeds!”

Marlene Taylor’s Grandmother’s Southern Spaghetti

4-6 servings

Hands on: 15 minutes

Total time: 45 minutes

Taylor wrote: “My grandmother Inez Estes Taylor made this spaghetti recipe often. She often served this with fried pork chops. I never knew there was any other kind of spaghetti. It was, and still is, one of my favorite dishes.”

Recipe tester and chef Virginia Willis noted that the original recipe instructed the cook to “cover and cook at medium temperature for about an hour to an hour and a half, stirring occasionally and mashing tomatoes into smaller pieces as it cooks. Add water, as necessary, to make sure it doesn’t burn and has the consistency of spaghetti sauce, but not too watery.” Noting the results were delicious, but perhaps a little time-consuming for a simple tomato sauce, she removed the water, chopped the tomatoes before adding them to the skillet so they would need less time to break down, and reduced the amount of cooking time.

4 pieces bacon

2 large onions, diced

3 (14.5-ounce) cans stewed tomatoes with celery, onions and green peppers, chopped

1 teaspoon granulated sugar, optional

Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

16 ounces spaghetti, cooked according to directions and drained

Place bacon in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook until crisp, about 7 minutes. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels to drain. Set aside. Pour off all but about 1 teaspoon of the rendered fat. Increase heat to medium-high. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are golden brown, about 10 minutes. Add tomatoes and sugar. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until thick and flavorful, about 20 minutes. Add drained spaghetti and stir to combine. Garnish with reserved bacon. Taste and adjust for seasoning with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Per serving (based on 4): 572 calories (percent of calories from fat, 8), 20 grams protein, 112 grams carbohydrates, 7 grams fiber, 5 grams fat (1 gram saturated), 5 milligrams cholesterol, 191 milligrams sodium.

Share your own heirloom recipe

You, too, can share an heirloom recipe and honor a loved one: Go to ajc.com/food, and under Recipe Restoration Project click on Submit Yours and fill out the form. Or e-mail it to savingsouthernfood@ajc.com. Or mail it to Southern Recipe Restoration Project, c/o Food Editor Susan Puckett, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 72 Marietta St. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30303.