Chicken Parmesan Sandwich
     with Tomato Sauce

Steve Elsenbeck

When my great-grandmother was making chicken parmesan, she would gather all of the ingredients from scratch. The one ingredient that has the most interesting story about it is the tomato sauce.

When my great grandmother and grandfather came to this country, they came to Lincroft, New Jersey, and built a house on a parcel of farmland. They had little work and less money, but they did have a tomato garden. My great-grandmother would can the tomatoes and make sauce for her family to eat later.

To get some extra money, she would sell the sauce to boats to bring to New York City. Every summer, she would can as much as she could. Once a week, she and my great-grandfather would fill the back of a horse carriage with the sauce, and ride on a dirt road from Lincroft to Keyport, New Jersey. At the Keyport docks, the boats would buy their goods, and bring them to the restaurants in New York City.

Doing this helped to bring in a little profit to go along with the little they already had. The sauce recipe was loved by everyone in the city. Eventually, a businessman from one of the boats purchased the recipe from my great-grandmother. She probably sold the recipe for little to nothing.

Whenever my mom or grandmother makes this dish, I always think of the big name sauce brands like Hunts or Ragu and wonder if they got their recipe from my great grandmother--if they got the recipe from a poor old Irishwoman selling homemade sauce at the Keyport docks and how different would my life be if she held on to the recipe a little longer.