The Sauce Men

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Their job is to put the finishing touches on 640 pounds of spaghetti and 7,000 meatballs to serve approximately 2,500 people in a day. Without them, the meal would be bare. Pasta sauce is needed and they have 350 gallons at their disposal. They are known as the sauce men.

Joe Losurdo and Tino Porrino were on a simple mission today at the 59th annual spaghetti supper at the Cathedral Academy at Pompei on Syracuse's North Side: make sure the customers get their sauce, and plenty of it. The supper is an election day tradition in Onondaga County with people coming to enjoy an Italian meal and to socialize with the politicians who attend.

At 1:30 p.m., Porrino stepped away from one of the two giants bowls of sauce.

"Take a guess how hot it gets in here," he said as he wiped his brow.

"Very hot," a reporter offered. Porrino laughed.

Simply put, the job is a messy one. Losurdo wears a once-white cooking apron with the Italian flag on the front that is now splattered with sauce. Porrino's red shirt and red apron hides the mess better than Losurdo's outfit.

"We throw our clothes away at the end of the day," Losurdo said.

And the day is a long one. Losurdo and Porrino arrived in the kitchen at 5:30 a.m. and won't leave until the supper ends almost fourteen hours later.

The tiring day is worth it, though, they said.

"The best part is seeing all of our friends come through and (enjoying the food)," Losurdo said.