Right before you start reading this you’re going to have to stock up bourbon, Chianti Classico, and get out your biggest pan to create the best meat or bolognese sauce on the planet. Oh, and download a copy of Goodfellas.
“Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a gangster,” is arguably one of the greatest and most memorable lines ever put on the big screen. But whilst we might all remember Martin Scorsese’s classic film for how it depicts the true story of a group of friends who grow up on the streets of Brooklyn, to become some of New York’s most feared gangsters – or wiseguys – it is also a homage to the city’s American Italian community and their love for food, wine, family and music.
Yes, the body count gets pretty high throughout the film, but so do the number of plates and bowls of spaghetti, lasagne, meat sauce, all accompanied by bottles and carafes of wine and shots of bourbon and whisky. For no matter how serious things got, there was always time to stop and eat.
In fact, the opening bloody scene that sees the film’s main characters, Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta), Jimmy Conway (Robert de Niro) and Tommy De Vito (Joe Pesci) kill and then bury rival gangster Billy Batts out in the woods, starts with a scene later in the film, where they go to Jimmy’s mother’s house to pick up a shovel to help bury him. In this wonderfully, and apparently completely improvised scene, it results with them all sitting down to a bowl of pasta whilst they all chat innocently away away with the mother , who is actually played by Martin Scorsese’s real mother, Catherine Scorsese. For film nerds out there watch how De Niro makes a big thing of rubbing the bottle of tomato sauce in the same hands that will moments later violently stab to death Billy Batts. Blood on your hands indeed.
The film is just packed with little touches, where food and drink are there in the background, helping to tell the story as much as the dialogue and what the main characters are staying. Here, for example, is how they introduce the head of the mob family, Paulie Cicero, and how he is never directly told anything that might incriminate him. All played out at afternoon barbeque.
Then there is the nightlife. the drinking and the partying, which for these wise guys meant conducting their affairs, literally, at the Copacabana nightclub. Come on who has not dreamt of being able to walk through the back door of the kitchens of a famous club or restaurant and be whisked all the way through to the best seat in the house. “What do you do!?” “I’m in construction…”
But the greatest dining scene in the film, and arguably any film, actually takes place in prison, where a number of the gangsters have ended up including Henry Hill and their mob boss, Paulie Cicero (Paul Silvino). Here they live more like kings than prisoners with daily supplies of food and drink. Here is where Scorsese really goes to town to show how important food is in their lives, particularly in prison.
Or as Ray Liotto describes: “In prison, dinner was always a big thing. We had a pasta course, and then we had a metre of fish…” That’s before they got started on the steak.
There is even the classic way that Paulie would slice the garlic. Take it away Ray Liotto: “He had a wonderful system for doing the garlic. He used a razor, and he would slice it so thin it would liquify in the pan with just a little oil…it was a very good system.”
Look out for another Scorsese family cameo. ‘Vinnie’ tasked with cooking the meat sauce is actually Martin Scorsese’s father, even though Ray Liotto thought he used a little too many onions.
Then there is the classic line, again from Paulie, when Henry Hill pulls a bottle of wine out of the bag of smuggled goods. “We’ve got the wine. Now we can eat.”
Even when the film is reaching its climax and the FBI are closing in on an increasingly drug crazed Henry Hill, his first priority it so make sure the meat sauce that he is cooking for a family get together does not get ruined whilst he is out covering his tracks, dropping off guns and trying to keep his creaking empire afloat. Whilst all the time a helicopter follows him around watching his every move.
As he says: “I told my brother to keep an eye on the stove. All day long the poor guy has been watching helicopters and tomato sauce.”
So with so much food to choose from what are you going to eat? Well you can’t go wrong with the following classic meat sauce that comes straight from the kitchen of Mrs Catherine Scorsese herself. Yes, if you have read this far you are honoured to be able to share what is such a prized recipe.
Mama Scorsese famous goodfellas meat sauce recipe:
1/2 lb. piece shank of veal, whole
1/2 lb. pork sausage
light olive oil
medium onion, chopped small
5 large garlic cloves or more, whole
6-oz. can tomato paste
2 28-oz. cans Italian-style tomatoes (preferably Redpak brand)
For meatballs:
1 lb. ground mixture of veal, beef, and pork
1 egg
grated Locatelli and sardo cheeses
fresh parsley
garlic salt, optional
salt and finely ground red pepper
2 T tomato sauce
bread crumbs if needed for consistency
Method
Sauté sausage and veal in a large pot in olive oil until a little brown. Put aside. Sauté onion and garlic cloves in the same pot until golden. Add tomato paste and 3 paste cans of water to pot. Put tomatoes through a sieve to get rid of seeds and add to pot. Cook on low flame.
When sauce starts to bubble, add salt and red pepper to taste and simmer for a while, stirring every now and then from the bottom up. Don’t put in any oregano; it keeps repeating on you.
Add the large pieces of veal and pork. Cook uncovered until meat comes apart with a fork.
Mix meatball ingredients together and roll into egg-size balls. Put raw meatballs in the sauce — do not fry them. When meatballs float to the top of the sauce (don’t stir until they do), they should be done. Simmer and stir a few more minutes.
Remove pieces of veal and pork, slice, and serve as a side dish with meatballs. Serve sauce over spaghetti or whatever pasta you want.
What you going to drink?
Well that’s really down to you. But clearly Italian wine has to be on your list. With Italian Americans it’s probably best to head to Sicily and a heavy bottle of Nero D’Avolo, or back up to Tuscany and choose anything from Chianti Classico through to Montepulciano. There is also a lot of spirits being drunk too, perhaps most famously when Tommy inexplicably shoots dead the bar tender, Spider, for spilling his drink and answering him back. And if you prefer your whisky then its J&B Scotch whisky that Paulie has in prison.
So put away the chocolate, and get yourself ready for the Goodfellas watching, eating, dining and drinking experience.
