That night, my whole family went to Tutu’s house for dinner. Everyone gathered at the table and eagerly waited for it. Tantalizing aromas, wide eyes, and hyper children; we all wanted some. Beep! Beep! Beep! That could only mean one thing…the Mozetti was ready.
Ever since I can remember, I was brought up with Mozetti. This one of a kind dish was birthed in the early 1940’s at the beginning of World War II by my great-aunt, and then was given to my great-grandmother. No one really knows what gave my great-aunt her inspiration, but now it’s a family tradition. While I was interviewing my “Tutu” (grandmother), she told me a lot about life back then. She said “Back then, we had to turn off all the lights at night. The only lights that were allowed were little blue lights on the cars.” “Why” I asked, “Because! The Japanese bombers! They would fly so low, we could feel the vibrations from them!”
I read the ingredients: one package of chow fun noodles, a half pound of ground pork, one pound of ground beef, one can of tomato soup, one can of tomato sauce, one can of cream corn, and slices of American cheese. As I got more into detail on process I realized the hard work it required. “You have to boil, drain, cook, mix, stir, and cook again?!” I overwhelmingly asked. “Yup, it’s easy” she calmly replied. “First” she said, “we need to boil the chow-fun noodles, then drain them”. Next she explained to cook the ground pork until it was no longer pink, then to add in the ground beef and cook for 15 minutes. Then, we had to mix tomato sauce, tomato soup and cream corn in a bowl. This was the messiest step, and personally my favorite. After that, we drained the oil from the meats, and combined red slurry with the meats to make symphony of colors. We dropped the noodles in, layered it with a thick layer of cheese, and then baked it. This part was boring; we had to wait 30 minutes while the Mozetti got to relax in a 350 ° oven. When it came out, I nearly fell as an invisible wall of smell hit me. “All the hard work paid off” I thought to myself as the cheese poured down my throat.
All of this hard work has allowed me to see how dedicated my grandmother is, and how fortunate we are to have a recipe that has been passed for four generations.
