Brainhell spaghetti sauce

I don't drink, so I don't know much about wine. But I do know that bad wine is tart and tangy, acidic. I once bought some cheap wine for some friends and was mortified. In contrast, a wine snob once ordered us some very mellow, subtle, wine, which is the only wine I remember actually enjoying. I would have consumed it just for the taste.

Some people like their spaghetti sauce to shout "tomato!" To me, that's the same as tart, acidic wine. This spaghetti sauce recipe has been in my FOO for over 50 years, having originally been cribbed from Sunset Magazine. The whole point of this sauce is to be mellow, and subtle, to tame the tomato. I think of it as a tomato sauce wine.

2 pounds ground beef
5 cans (8 oz. cans) tomato sauce
3 cans (8 oz. cans) water
1 whole onion
1 stalk celery
1 green bell pepper
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried parsley
salt to taste

Grind the onion, celery, and bell pepper. Sauté beef with the ground ingredients. Add tomato sauce and water, plus the spices. Simmer five hours.

Yes, five hours. That's what refines the tomato sauce into its ideal state. If you try this sauce, drop me a line and let me know if you liked it or not. Put some sliced salami, and a couple of slices of dense cheddar cheese under the noodles on your plate.

We used to eat this once a week. I thought our family was Italian, and was surprised at nine years old to find out that we weren't.