NOT MADE in ITALY

JORDAN KRETCHMER meets the producers that draw on Italian food-making traditions, but with an Australian edge.

- JORDAN KRETCHMER

Lucia’s

Pizza sauce, pasta sauce and tomato passata

Bottling summer’s best harvest of ripe Roma tomatoes has been a long-term job and legacy for Lucia’s Simon Bugeja. “Lucia was my nonna, and my grandfather Pasquale was a prisoner of war, who fought for Italy and got sent to Australia,” says Bugeja. “He eventually ended up in Shepparton growing tomatoes.” In 1953, when Lucia and Pasquale moved to Adelaide, they began cooking pizze and making their own tomato passata. Pizza was virtually unheard of in Adelaide, and there was nowhere to get quality passata. “Nonna would never use a pre-made sauce, she’d make it in the summertime when the tomatoes were in season.” Curious neighbours and friends, coupled with the global rise of pizza in cities like New York, meant there was a hunger for the humble pie, and soon after, in 1957, the couple opened one of South Australia’s first pizza restaurants – Lucia’s Pizza and Spaghetti Bar – in Adelaide Central Market, which is still open today. Decades on and the passata-making tradition was passed on to Lucia’s grandchildren, who, from the backyard of the family home, made the sauce to supply the restaurant. Eventually, the grandchildren decided to hire out a commercial kitchen in the hopes of making the process more streamlined. It wasn’t long before the tomato sugo became one of the square focuses of the family business, with Lucia’s sauce range launching in 2002. To this day, the family still get their Shepparton tomatoes, looking for the same qualities their grandfather did back in the ’50s. “We look for tomatoes with little water, mainly pulp and high sugar content. They are hand-picked ripe – and it makes a great, sweet, consistent sauce.” lucias.com.au