With Felicia Mohan
Referred to as Pasta Gagoots by many Italians from Sicily, including the family of Felicia Ciaramitaro Mohan, who shows you how to prepare this special dish. It is a layered pasta dish that is most often used when you have extra large zucchinis left over from the garden or from elsewhere. Since they are usually tougher than smaller zucchinis, this recipe allows you to fry them and then add to a form of layered pasta casserole, mixed together with fresh basil, parmesan cheese and sliced hard boiled eggs.
There are theories and ideas all over the Internet as to what and where the actual word comes from, and even how you spell it. Many know the word phonetically where they heard it around the kitchen and dinner table growing up. The Sicilian word for pumpkin is cucuzza, and that may be the origin, which means the original slang word is probably spelled something like “cucuzz?” Tony Saprano called his son “gagoots” when he wanted to convey how stupid he was. In any case it is definitely a slang term that many have heard and few are sure of the exact spelling or origin.
Ingredients
1 over sized zucchini
Fresh grated parmeasn cheese
1 pound pasta, cooked
1 cup fresh basil, sliced
8 hard boiled eggs, sliced
Pepper to taste
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
1. Slice zucchini into slices about 1/8 of an inch thick and fry in oil for about 2 to 3 minutes on each side until golden brown.
2. Fold several of the basil leaves together into a cigar shaped piece and slice cross ways into small strips.
3. Place 1/3 of the cooked pasta into a large bowl and add a layer of the fried zucchini.
4. Sprinkle a layer of the parmesan cheese over the zucchini.
5. Add a layer of the basil and then the sliced eggs on top.
6. Ladle about 1/4 cup of pasta water on top and sprinkle a small amount of pepper on top.
7. Repeat the above steps twice more with the rest of the ingredients to make three layers.
8. Top off final layer with olive oil and extra parmesan cheese.
Serve on plates with olive oil and fesh basil leaves.
Recipe courtesy of Felicia (Ciaramitaro) Mohan, 2011.
From "Food For Thought" Column by Heather Atwood:
Felicia Mohan lives in a sparkling new house in Gloucester, and has twin 11-year-olds: Amanda, playing 12-year-old tennis and ranked No. 32 in New England, and B.J., a catcher for AAU Baseball who will play in the Gloucester All-Star 11-year-old team. Felicia looks like a beautiful, modern mother, struggling to get her kids where they need to go while keeping up with life at home, but Felicia is also adamant about preserving her family's Sicilian heritage, particularly the dishes her grandmother, another Felicia, prepared.
Felicia Mohan's grandfathers were named Joseph Salvatore Ciaramitaro — both of them, spelled the exact same way. One Joseph fished first from his boat The Benjamin and Josephine, which was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Maine, and then he fished from his Benjamin C, named after his father-in-law, Benjamin Cucuru. Later he founded Capt'n Joe's Lobster Co. on the wharf in Gloucester, now run by Felicia's brother, Joey, and cousin Frankie.
Felicia's other grandfather owned Pat's Center Grocery, that not only sold groceries but provided all the fishing boats with food for their long trips, delivering the "speza," as the supplies were called, to each boat before it left port.
Grandpa with the wharf was married to Felicia's namesake. Holidays at this Felicia's house began a full week ahead as all the women in the family gathered at her home, which had two full kitchens, to cook together. When school let out at 3, the children went straight to Grandma's house that week because that's where their mothers were cooking. Not only were these women making all the traditional Italian holiday foods, from appetizers such as octopus salad, a standard which the men insisted upon at every holiday, to a wealth of Italian cookies, homemade bread, and New World foods such as pies, but the women were also making ordinary dinners those weeknights for all their husbands and children.
Felicia and Joseph have passed away. Now, holiday meals are at young Felicia's, where 35 to 40 people come to celebrate. Felicia, like her grandmother, still sets a formal table with china and linen; her custom-built table seats 25, with two more tables in the great room for overflow, replacing her grandmother's enormous table that started in the kitchen, extended through the dining room, the hallway and ended at the living room.
In her large, creamy, new kitchen, Felicia still makes dishes like braciole, spiedini, and olive gonzathe. She makes videos for this newspaper showing how to prepare her grandmother's special bread crumbs, "mudiga," with chicken and steak. This past December, Felicia gathered all the cousins together to make their great-grandmother's Santa Lucia dessert, "cuccia," a vanilla pudding made with wheatberries which the playful great-grandmother had always encouraged the children to eat in a race.
Contact Heather at heatheraa@aol.com. Her blog is at gloucestertimes.com/foodforthought
