Great Food Moments in Film -- The Godfather

There is a rule about eating in films, which is: don't. It just doesn't photograph well, and nobody wants to listen to actors deliver lines while their mouths are full. However, from time to time great culinary moments do surface in popular cinema, and I will periodically be looking at some of these scenes in "Great Food Moments in Film."
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"Hey, come over here, kid, learn somethin'. You never know, you might have to cook for 20 guys someday." -- Peter Clemenza, The Godfather

It is not often that major motion pictures are entertaining while also being educational. For instance, I loved 3:10 to Yuma but I didn't really take anything away from it beyond a renewed appreciation of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Thank goodness for The Godfather, which combines great drama with some important basic life lessons (two shots in the head a piece, please), one of which is the recipe to a good spaghetti sauce.

The scene in question comes between the first and second acts of the film, after one of the many cases of 'conflict resolution' seen in the film ("How's Paulie?" "Oh, Paulie, won't see him no more.") In this scene, Michael Corleone, still considered "a civilian," learns how to cook meat sauce from caporegime Peter Clemenza. This is the first of Michael's many initiations into the family after being seen as an outsider, and the act of learning how to make sauce is full of symbolism as an entrance into the Italian inner circle. Sauce is a thing of great importance to Italians, and a few of us--including myself--have very special family recipes that we are very particular about. To quote Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis, "While there are a lot of things I like to try from other people, tomato sauce is not one of them." My recipe came from my grandmother, which she in turn learned from her mother, so my family recipe is more or less about 100 years old. I imagine that the case is no different for Clemenza. He prepares his sauce with the familiarity of someone who has been doing it for years, and his recitation of the entire cooking process--which takes all of 24 seconds--is nothing but cook shorthand that has been boiled down from years of repetition. Clemenza makes it look simple, and for the most part, making sauce isn't brain surgery, but one of the reasons why it looks so simple is because it has been prepared so many times.

Apparently this recipe for sauce, which does not appear in the book, was a concoction of director Francis Ford Coppola. Save for a few things I do differently, his recipe reminds me a lot of mine--for instance, we both use brown sugar in our sauce--and if you listen intently and take a few notes, you should be able to follow this recipe and come up with a decent sauce. Reproduced below is the entire recipe, as delivered by Clemenza:

"You start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, some tomato paste. You fry it, you make sure it doesn't stick. When you got it to a boil, you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs. Add a little bit of wine, and a little bit of sugar, and that's my trick."

Judging from that, here is a very rudimentary recipe to follow:
1 32 oz. can of tomato sauce
1 28 oz. can of tomato puree
Minced garlic
Butter
Olive Oil
Italian Seasoning
Basil
Parsley flakes
Meatballs
Italian Sausage
Wine
Brown sugar

1. In a large sauce pan, saute minced garlic in a combination of butter and olive oil
2. Add tomato puree and tomato sauce to the garlic, add water or tomato puree to adjust thickness
3. Add Italian seasoning, basil, and parsley flakes to sauce
4. Add sausage and meatballs, make sure that meat is completely submerged in sauce
5. Add to sauce one small glass of red wine, and a tablespoon of brown sugar

Good Luck.

EDIT: It is important to note that Clemenza delivers these lines while actually doing the steps in front of Michael. If you don't own The Godfather, it'll benefit you to watch the scene and follow his steps that way. And if you don't have a copy of The Godfather, what's the matter with you?