Originally published in the Black Diamond Bulletin, Spring 2013
By Ken Jensen
Mario Batali, celebrated chef, writer, restaurateur, and media personality, was born in Seattle in 1960, one of Armandino and Marilyn Batali’s three children. But did you know that his grandmother, Leonetta Merlino—perhaps the one person who most influenced his cooking—was born right here in Black Diamond in 1902?
Mario’s father—a man who’s experienced a great deal of success in his own right, first at Boeing and then as the owner of Salumi Artisan Cured Meats in Pioneer Square—did. Leonetta was his mother.
According to Armandino, family patriarch Angelo Merlino arrived in Black Diamond in 1896 from Taranta Peligna, Italy, to work in the coal mines. His first wife, Antoinetta, joined him six months later in 1897. Ubaldo, their first child, was born here in 1899, followed by Carmella in 1900, and Leonetta. Attilio and Annie followed in 1904 and 1908, respectively.
Angelo, however, soon tired of not being able to eat good pasta, meat, and salami, so he moved the family near Seattle’s International District where he opened the Metropolitan Grocery. In the 1920s, he moved the business, then known as Angelo Merlino & Sons, strategically across the street from the old immigration building.
“A lot of people came through there and the first thing they found was an Italian store importing Greek and Jewish and Turkish products, plus Italian,” said Armandino. “[Angelo] had instant access to people coming into the county. Smart guy. He built up quite a business.”
In fact it was a business that Angelo operated for half a century until his death in 1957, and one that his sons continued to run into the mid-1970s. And though Merlino Imports is no longer associated with the family, it’s still in business today.
Food, you see, has always played an important role in the Merlino and Batali families.
“We were a family of cooks,” said Armandino. “My mother and father, Armando Batali—who too was born into a coal mining family in Butte, Montana—were great cooks… together,” he added.
“The memories the kids have is going to grandma’s and all the food that was always on the table: some antipasto, some salami, and cheese and bread. You went to the first course—maybe a soup, probably a soup—because she loved soup. The second course would be pasta. You thought dinner was over and then you had four more courses of meat and everything else! They remember that.
“They remember the fun, the bantering around the table. The whole social life was around the table.”
Mario, in an interview on PBS’s Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., said that his grandmother’s ravioli “were amongst the greatest single things that were ever experienced in our lives. And she had a count. And it’s legendary among my entire family. You got, and I’m not sure…. I don’t remember the number anymore. It was either eight, nine, or eleven—and that was all you got.”
Armandino remembers. “She would limit them each to nine. If they ate more than nine they wouldn’t eat anything else. That’s a great memory for the kids.”
The ingredients for her ravioli included Swiss chard and sausage, and it was often served with oxtails.
“When our neighborhood friends would come over and hear what we were having, they thought we were the weirdest people in the world because they were still buying sliced turkey and putting it on white bread,” Mario told Henry.
Armandino’s job at Boeing took the family to Spain in the late 1970s. During vacations, the family traveled throughout Europe and learned about enjoying food, the quality of food, and service.
“Everything relied on food in our family.”
And so it only seems logical that Mario would become a chef, a craft he honed while living in Italy for three years. But in the early 1980s cooking still wasn’t “hip”…yet.
“Cooking was kind of the last thing you did when you got out of the military before you went to jail,” Mario joked with Henry. “It was the lowest-common-denominator job. Everybody could peel potatoes.”
And so the family tradition lives on.
“He [Mario] always remembers his grandma—all our kids do. They talk about grandma and grandpa and their food,” said Armandino.
“Whenever we get together, we always light a candle for grandma and grandpa in the corner so that the memory is not forgotten.”
For more information about the Batali family, go to:
Mario Batali’s grandmother’s ravioli
Kosher salt
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 large red onions, sliced
1 pound sweet Italian sausage (crumbled)
1 bunch red Swiss chard, cut into ½-inch ribbons
1 cup fresh ricotta
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Pasta sheets
For the oxtail ragu:
5 pounds oxtail, cut into 2-inch thick pieces
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Flour, for dredging
2 medium onions, sliced ¼-inch thick
4 cups red wine
2 cups brown chicken stock
2 cups basic tomato sauce
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
Pecorino Romano, for grating
Preparation:
Go to ABC TV’s The Chew web site:
abc.go.com/shows/the-chew/recipes/Grandma-Ravioli-Mario-Batali
Come on 4 onions! This is not authentic from original recipe guys!
LikeLike
[…] Source: Information about Mario’s family – https://blackdiamondhistory.wordpress.com […]
LikeLike