'The stove was their canvas, their studio, and their heartbeat' – Lucinda Scala Quinn reflects on four generations of women who shaped her life and her latest cookbook

A Cook's Legacy is our new six-part series with Lucinda Scala Quinn, exploring family, food, and cultural memory through her beloved culinary voice. Our interview here introduces Lucinda, who shares the inspiration behind her latest book, Mother Sauce.

Few cooks bridge professional mastery and deeply personal storytelling as gracefully as Lucinda Scala Quinn. The author of eight cookbooks and long-time food director at Martha Stewart Living, Scala Quinn has spent decades showing home cooks how to bring restaurant-worthy meals to the family table. But with her latest book, Mother Sauce, she turns inward – toward the women whose kitchens came before hers.

Part memoir, part cultural history, and part recipe collection, Mother Sauce traces four generations of Italian American foodways, beginning with her great-grandmother Aquilina, a turn-of-the-century immigrant who ran a New York boarding house. 'These remarkable women gave birth to a cuisine that their fathers, husbands, and sons then monetized outside the home,' Scala Quinn writes. For her, preserving these stories is both an act of reverence and a call to home cooks everywhere: food is memory, community, and survival. I caught up with her to discover more about her journey to writing this homage to her culture and foodie heritage.

Your new book, Mother Sauce, draws on four generations of family recipes. When did you first realize you were the ‘keeper of stories’ in your family?

It happened at my aunt’s funeral in 2021. Afterward, we gathered in my cousin’s kitchen, and suddenly all these women – cousins, aunts, great-aunts – were swapping memories about food. One cousin insisted a recipe I’d made on the Today Show belonged to her grandmother. Another said it was her nana’s. That moment hit me: the women held onto these recipes because it was their art, their creative power center. I went home that night and wrote the book proposal.

Writing this book sounds more emotional than your earlier work. How did it feel to dig so deeply?

With Mad Hungry [Lucinda's earlier cookbook], I was outwardly family-oriented. With Mother Sauce, I went inward. Surrounded by men my whole life – all brothers, all sons – I wanted to honor the women. I spent three years writing and researching, often immersing myself in archives and ship manifests. At the same time, my husband was sick, and I was his caregiver. I finished the manuscript on April 1, 2024; he passed away three weeks later. The book is braided with grief, love, and a deep spiritual connection to those who came before us.

The title, Mother Sauce, is so evocative. What does it mean to you?

Of course, the phrase 'mother sauce' comes from French culinary tradition, where it refers to the five foundational sauces. But for this book, the meaning was much more personal. In Italian American families of the 1950s, if you married an Italian man, you were expected to cook like his mother. Martin Scorsese even captured this in a documentary where his mother admits she had to abandon her own mother’s sauce to adopt her mother-in-law’s. So the title holds both layers: the formal idea of a foundation, and the lived reality that the sauce was the mother’s domain – the source of authority, inheritance, and identity in the kitchen.

You call it 'American-made Italian cooking' rather than 'Italian American'. Why?

Because America reshaped the cuisine. Italians arrived as Calabrese, Genovese, Sicilian– not 'Italian'. They found an abundance of produce, canned goods, and meats in America. Their traditions met that bounty and became something new. Nobody can tell me my meatballs are wrong; they’re defined by my family’s history. That freedom is liberating.

Did you uncover any stories during your research that surprised you?

Discovering my great-grandmother Aquilina on the Ellis Island ship manifest was extraordinary. She crossed the Atlantic three times, eventually paying her own way. That detail – seeing 'self-paid' instead of 'husband' – was powerful. It spoke volumes about her resilience and independence.

You write that Italian American food often overlooks the role of women. What did you mean by that?

The women were the architects of this cuisine, but their work was rarely recognized outside the home. They cooked three meals a day on limited budgets, transforming humble ingredients into dishes that nourished entire communities. Meanwhile, it was usually men who opened the restaurants, sold the cookbooks, and became the public faces. I wanted Mother Sauce to shine a light back onto the women whose creativity and labor built the foodway in the first place.

What was your own family kitchen like growing up?

Theatrical! Imagine women in floral house dresses, stirring multiple pots while kids ran around. We had huge kitchen gardens, and every gathering was loud, joyful, and full of debate – sometimes over politics, but more often over food. For example, in my family there were fierce arguments about whether to brown meatballs before adding them to sauce, or drop them in raw. To me, those debates were just as political as any election – they revealed people’s loyalties and traditions.

How do you balance tradition with your professional background as a recipe developer?

That tension is at the heart of my cooking. My family taught me intuition and frugality; my career taught me precision and clarity. So while I might sauté garlic and onions before adding them to a bresaola filling – something my ancestors never would have done – I also strip recipes down to their purest form. I always ask: what’s the fewest ingredients, the most streamlined technique, to bring out the deepest flavor?

What do you hope readers will take away, beyond the recipes?

I hope they see food as a living archive. My foremothers cooked frugally but with incredible skill – saving onion skins for broth, stretching beans into feasts. They taught me that a pot of cannellini beans is as important as a ribeye steak. Their kitchens remind us that food is never just about feeding; it’s about creating belonging. I hope readers feel empowered to preserve their own family’s foodways, whether by perfecting one recipe or opening their table to anyone who walks through the door.

Do you have advice for readers who want to keep their own family recipes alive?

Start with one dish. Learn it so deeply it’s in your bones. That one recipe will lead to others, because you already have the building block ingredients in your pantry. Then, when you make that dish for your family or friends, you’re carrying forward a legacy.

Lucinda's Bucatini with Sausage Ragù

This Bucatini with Sausage Ragù comes from Lucinda Scala Quinn’s new book Mother Sauce and captures the kind of cooking she loves – rooted in tradition but tailored for modern life. By starting with seasoned sausage meat, you get all the depth of a long-simmered sauce without the extra ingredients or effort. Best of all, the ragù freezes beautifully, so you can thaw it in the time it takes to boil pasta for a weeknight dinner that feels like Sunday.

For a twist on your typical meat sauce, start with seasoned sausage meat squeezed from its casings – a shortcut to deep flavor. Rosemary adds a hint of fresh herby/piney-ness to the rich sauce. I like to make enough to eat right away with an extra quart to freeze for later. Always keep a frozen thaw-and-heat sauce in your freezer, which can be reheated in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

Ingredients (serves 4 - 6)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 pound (455 g) sweet Italian sausages, removed from casings
• 1 pound (455 g) spicy Italian sausages, removed from casings
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 medium carrot, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• Two 28-ounce (800 g) cans whole tomatoes
• One 6-inch (15 cm) sprig fresh rosemary
• 1 pound (455 g) long pasta, such as bucatini or spaghetti
• Grated Parmesan or Romano cheese for serving
• Freshly ground black pepper

Method

• Heat the oil in a 4- to 5-quart (3.8 to 4.7 L) saucepan over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the sausage and brown the meat, breaking it up into small pieces, until just cooked through, about 5 minutes.
• Add the onions, carrots, garlic, and tomato paste and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and rosemary, breaking up the tomatoes with the side of the spoon or with scissors, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, partially cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens and reduces slightly, about 30 minutes.
• Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt it generously and add the pasta. Cook for 2 minutes shy of the package instructions; the noodles should be slightly soft but still with a firm chew to them.
• Drain the noodles, transfer to a serving bowl, and toss with a ladleful of sauce to coat them. Serve the pasta in bowls with the remaining sauce, grated cheese, and freshly ground pepper on top.

If you love Italian-inspired cooking, we have a wonderful collection of Italian recipes to try, as well as these summer pasta recipes, which are just as good all year round.