"Marie Cochran[sic.] remembered canning 100 bushels of tomatoes for Saginaw’s first spaghetti house.” (“Mudd Crusades for Potter Street.” The Saginaw News, September 29, 1993). [Marie Corcoran worked at her family’s restaurant, Meo’s Spaghetti House.]
Saginaw’s history – like the recipes we feature - is a series of complex and intertwined stories of people, places, and things. Such is the case of our exploration of Saginaw’s early Spaghetti Houses. This quest was inspired by our initial research for Anderson’s Steakhouse – we discovered two recipes from the establishment: the banana cream pie we featured last week and the recipe for spaghetti sauce we feature this week:
This link will take you to last week’s post about the Anderson Steakhouse.
Last year, as we searched for evidence of Saginaw’s first pizza advertisement, we stumbled across two of Saginaw’s early Spaghetti houses--Lucy’s Italian Spaghetti House, 124 North Baum and Marge’s Spaghetti House, 419 Davenport. These two eateries opened in the years following World War II. Although early, these were not the first Saginaw establishments to bill themselves as “Spaghetti Houses.”
This link will take you to the histories of Lucy’s Italian Spaghetti House and Marge’s Spaghetti House.
While we cannot supply an exact, precise definition of a Spaghetti House, we interpret it to refer to a restaurant with a menu focusing on Italian food served in a comfortable, casual manner. In Saginaw, at least, they were most often owned and operated by members of Saginaw’s Italian American community. Marge’s Spaghetti House was the easiest to recognize as a Spaghetti house as it was literally the first floor of a residence. [In short, by our working definition, if “Spaghetti House” is included in the title, we are considering it a Spaghetti House.]
The earliest advertisement for a Saginaw Spaghetti House is a 1917 promotion for:
518 Potter Street was in a block of buildings directly across the street from the Flint & Pere Marquette Union station – Potter Street Depot. Sansone’s restaurant was one of several in the blocks facing the station. The building was owned by the estate of W.Q. Atwood. This link will help you learn more about W.Q. Atwood.
Potter Street literally was Saginaw’s front door and the story of an Italian restaurant in a storefront leased from the family of a Black businessman, testifies to the diversity of Saginaw’s heritage. And it reminds us of how much more we have to learn.
Sansone’s restaurant does not appear to have lasted long, and the space was soon used by the Atwood family for offices. However, in 1933 it became the home of Joe Meo’s Spaghetti House.
“Joseph Meo, former operator of Meo’s Spaghetti House, died Friday evening at his home, 2440 Whittier, after a lingering illness. He was 72. Mr. Meo operated the Potter Street restaurant from 1933 until he retired in 1945. He previously had operated a dry goods store and grocery store.
Born June 16, 1880, in Italy, Mr. Meo came to Saginaw in 1902. In 1906 he married Ann Delucia here. He was member of Mt. Carmel Church and the Columbus Society.” (The Saginaw News, November 22, 1952.)
Potter Street in the 1930s.
Our exploration continues . . .
The Recipe: Anderson’s Steakhouse Spaghetti Sauce
The earliest spaghetti sauce recipe we could locate from a Saginaw restaurant was from Anderson’s Steakhouse. While certainly not a spaghetti house, it was located near Marge’s Spaghetti House and it was the recipe that started us on our quest.
¾ Cup Salad Oil
1 ¼ cup each: beef, pork, veal, coarsely ground
4 lg Spanish onions, chopped fine or ground
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 lg cans tomatoes, broken up [we used 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes]
4 lg can tomato paste [we used 12 oz cans]
[1/2 teaspoon ground cloves]
[2 tablespoons brown sugar]
Put all in roaster (it’s not necessary to brown meat.) Bake at 250 degrees for 3 hours. Add 2 tablespoons brown sugar and ½ teaspoon ground cloves. Cook ½ hour more. Skim off fat. If not thick enough, thicken with flour and water. Freezes well. Make 5 quarts. From Savoring Saginaw.
CTK Notes:
We substituted a mixture of ground pork and beef. We only made a partial batch. We added about 1 /2 cups of water. We definitely did not need to thicken the sauce with flour.
Although cooking at a low temperature is essential for the preparation of this recipe, the CTK staff is not particularly comfortable with cooking pork at this low temperature. Please use caution, your own judgment – and a meat thermometer.
Although we feel additional experimentation with the ratio of tomato paste to tomato – exactly what was meant by a large can is uncertain, the sauce was surprisingly good. And we are left longing for the recipe from Meo’s Spaghetti House. If you have it, let us know.