Marc Forgione's Simple Tip For Elevating Spaghetti - Mashed

Marc Forgione's Simple Tip For Elevating Spaghetti - Mashed,Acclaimed chef and restaurateur Marc Forgione grew up with quality cooking and fresh ingredients, so it's no surprise he has opinions on how to serve spaghetti.

Marc Forgione’s Simple Tip For Elevating Spaghetti – Mashed

Spaghetti is one of those dishes that can be fancy or simple, depending on what you’re aiming for. Cooking for a special occasion or for a loved one? Giada De Laurentiis’ Lemon Spaghetti recipe may be just the dish to wow your guests. But if you’re looking for a low-maintenance pasta dish to whip up after a long day, a straightforward spaghetti with meatballs may be the way to go. But no matter how uncomplicated a pasta dish is, the effort and attention you put into it is what elevates it to the next level — at least according to acclaimed chef and restaurateur Marc Forgione.

“Spaghetti is a funny one because it’s such a common pasta that people have their own expectations, mentally and emotionally. We use it in all sorts of different ways throughout the year,” he tells Mashed. One of the keys to uplifting your spaghetti, he says, is to use fresh ingredients: “Right now we’re making a fresh tomato sauce from local heirloom tomatoes and serving it as a really beautiful version of spaghetti Pomodoro.” While this may sound difficult for those in a rush, there are always simple tweaks you can make, such as using fresh herbs, or making your own pasta sauce and freezing it in portions for future use.

He learned the importance of fresh ingredients from his family

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Chef Marc Forgione spent a lot of time as a kid visiting his grandmother’s Long Island farm, which influenced his fondness for using fresh ingredients. He’s taken that farm-to-table mentality with him into his career today. “I’m on a first name basis with most of our farmers. They stick around and they start to become like family,” he told Thrillist. Instead of getting products for his restaurants from one specific distributor, he has particular creators and suppliers for different meats, cheeses, fruits, and vegetables, all in the quest to use the finest ingredients in his dishes.

Besides the fact that his father is famed chef Larry Forgione, his parents had also met at The Culinary Institute of America, which says a lot about the importance of food in his family when he was growing up. “We had real dinners every day. 5:30, there was always a homecooked meal, we never had ‘processed’ or fast food or anything like that for dinner. If we did it was like a treat,” he told the podcast Beyond the Plate. He was so used to eating fresh ingredients that he was taken aback when he ate dinner at a friend’s house, and the ravioli he bit into was canned Chef Boyardee. “I took a bite and I literally had to get up and sprint into the bathroom and throw up,” he recalled, in case you had any doubts about the man’s commitment to a good plate of pasta.