Family that cooks together stays together

PEORIA, Ill. -- The holiday table at Sophie and Jerry Agatucci's house won't groan under the weight of turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.

Instead, the meal will center on Teresina Agatucci's homemade ravioli with meat sauce.

Teresina Agatucci is matriarch to four generations of Agatuccis who have cooked for love and money with recipes handed down by word of mouth. This is cooking by feel, taste, instinct and passion.

At Agatucci's Restaurant, which started as a little grocery store in 1926, they still use versions of family recipes from Collacio, Italy, formalized by Teresina's son Frank and his wife, Anne, with only moderate changes. These are the staples that make Agatucci's Restaurant's pizza and spaghetti sauce famous.

Other recipes that Teresina taught her sons, grandsons and their wives are staples of family cooking. Today, it is Frank's sons, Jim, 65, and Jerry, 63, the public knows best when the name Agatucci is mentioned.

Generations of perfection

The dishes served by the Agatucci brothers, however, were perfected by the generations before them. Sophie Agatucci learned to prepare the dishes in the kitchen of the family matriarch.

"I couldn't speak Italian and she couldn't speak English, but we communicated. She was a very kind woman," Sophie Agatucci said.

Teresina did not write down her recipes. Pasta was made by feel. She'd make a well in a pile of flour, whip eggs inside the well and pull flour into the well until the right consistency formed. Then she'd knead the flour, let it rest and roll it out to cut ravioli or noodles.

Today, Jim and Jerry get calls from people all over the country wanting pizza shipped frozen to their homes.

"We just shipped 10 pizzas to Kentucky," Jerry Agatucci said. "A guy from Austin, Texas, just bought three bottles of tiger sauce to take home with him."