[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 74 (Thursday, May 23, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3832-S3833]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO MARY ANNE GUCCIARDI
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Vermont is home to many treasures, from our
natural beauties to our manufactured goods to our award-winning
agricultural industry. It is also home to many spirited personalities,
and today I would like to honor one of them: a good friend and talented
cook, Mary Anne Gucciardi. Affectionately known as ``Mama Gucc'' to
those who have had the good fortune of sitting at her dining room
table, she makes newcomers feel like old friends. For more than two
decades, she has opened her home to hundreds of University of Vermont
sports teams, from skiing to soccer, hockey to basketball. Her menu
includes classics like baked stuff mushrooms, chicken cacciatore, and
of course meatballs and sauce. The mere mention of her name makes both
coaches' and athletes' mouths water.
Mama Gucc grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts, the daughter of an
Italian-American father and a French-Canadian mother. It was her
mother's Italian mother-in-law who served as the inspiration for Mama
Gucc's gourmet Italian favorites. As the grandson of Italian immigrants
myself, I have benefited from Mama Gucc's lavish feasts. She has made
me feel right like I was right back in my own mother's kitchen. Mary
Anne's heart is even bigger than her generous portions. She has not
only cooked for hundreds of athletes, hosted distinguished guests such
as bishops, senators and governors, but she has prepared countless
charity dinners, raising over $50,000 in scholarships in memory of a
UVM student, Kevin Roberson, tragically killed in a car accident. Her
love for cooking and for hosting has made ``Mama Gucc'' a surrogate
mother for the lucky student-athletes to come through her door, making
those students, sometimes hundreds of miles from their families, feel
right at home. In 1999, The University of Vermont honored Mama Gucc and
her husband by naming a new fitness facility the Richard and Mary Anne
Gucciardi Recreation and Fitness Center, a tribute most rightfully
deserved.
From every Vermonter who has indulged in Mama Gucc's famous cooking,
and has been blessed with her warm hospitality and generous support, we
thank Mary Anne Gucciardi for providing a home-away-from-home to all
who have passed through her doors.
I ask unanimous consent that The Burlington Free Press article,
``Celebrating the Italian Mama,'' be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Burlington Free Press, May 10, 2013]
``Celebrating the Italian Mama''
Among iconic maternal figures, the Italian mama or nonna
(grandmother) hovering over a fragrant pot of tomato sauce
ranks high--and few bring the legend to life better than
South Burlington's Mary Anne Gucciardi.
Recently in the Burlington kitchen of friends, Gucciardi,
80, known as Mama Gucc (pronounced ``gooch''), arrived not
only with ingredients to make her famous meatballs and sauce,
but also containers of meatballs and sauce, Italian wedding
soup and sausage Calabrese to give away.
``You get back what you give out,'' said the mother of four
and grandmother of four with a smile and a shrug.
If that were literally the case, Gucciardi would be
swimming in an ocean of herb-flecked tomato sauce with
meatballs.
For more than two decades until just a few years ago,
Gucciardi regularly cooked huge Italian feasts for a number
of University of Vermont sports teams with the support of her
husband and family. Her multi-course dinners--usually once a
season for the ski, soccer, hockey and basketball teams--
included a variety of home-cooked Italian classics like
minestrone, baked stuffed mushrooms, chicken cacciatore,
meatballs and sauce, and lasagna for as many as 40 team
members.
``She opened up her home to us,'' said longtime UVM men's
ice hockey coach, Mike Gilligan. ``She just treated the kids
and the coaches like they were her own family.''
``Mama Gucc was just wonderful,'' agreed former men's
basketball coach, Tom Brennan. ``She took care of us before
we got pretty,'' he joked, referring to the pre-championship-
era of his team. ``The food was always so lavish, from soup
to nuts . . . You know these kids, they eat like horses.
Everybody would eat until they couldn't stand up.''
``She was always there for us,'' Brennan continued,
recalling how Gucciardi accompanied the team to the 1993
funeral of their recently graduated teammate, Kevin Roberson,
who had been tragically killed in a car accident. ``It was so
comforting to have her there and she brought a big pile of
food.''
In addition, the Gucciardi family held frequent dinner
parties for distinguished guests including coaches, senators,
governors, professors and bishops, and also cooked countless
benefit dinners, which raised more than $50,000 for a UVM
scholarship fund in Roberson's name. In September 1999, UVM
honored Gucciardi and her husband by naming a new 6,000-
square-foot fitness facility the Richard and Mary Anne
Gucciardi Recreation and Fitness Center.
It all began after Gucciardi met some student-athletes
while helping with a Newman Catholic Center fundraiser, she
explained while mixing together a double batch of meatballs.
(``I never make a single batch,'' she said.) During winter
break, when athletes often had to stay on campus to train,
she said, ``they were away from home, looking for a good
meal. There was a lot of joy in seeing them enjoy the food.''
Gucciardi also shared a more personal motivation to give
back after her youngest son, now 50, survived a very serious
car accident when he was 3\1/2\. The family was in the
process of moving to Burlington where her husband had landed
a job with General Electric.
[[Page S3833]]
For six weeks, Gucciardi slept by her son's bedside in the
hospital and prayed daily in the chapel at UVM. The local
Italian community warmly welcomed them, she recalled, and
offered support. ``I just always said I would give back for
what was given to us,'' she said.
Family recipes
Scraping the fat and caramelized bits from a pan of roasted
Italian sausage into her sauce pot, Gucciardi explained that
she has taken family recipes and ``made them my own over the
years.''
She grew up in Haverhill, Mass., with an Italian-American
father and a French-Canadian mother, but her mother learned
to cook Italian from her mother-in-law, Gucciardi's paternal
grandmother, ``a great cook,'' Gucciardi said.
After frying the onions and garlic in the sausage fat
(``You just get such flavor from that,'' she explained),
Gucciardi added tomato paste and canned Italian tomatoes
along with a little water and generous amounts of dried
parsley and basil, which would come fresh from her garden in
the summer, she said.
``I never measure anything,'' she added apologetically.
Luckily for her fans, Gucciardi taught a series of cooking
classes in the mid-'80s for which she had to write down her
recipes. It was in that class that Gucciardi met John
Varricchione, in whose Burlington kitchen she was cooking
last week.
Varricchione, 66, a retired teacher and football coach at
Rice Memorial High School, grew up in the center of
Burlington's Italian community where, just like in
Gucciardi's family, his paternal grandmother taught his
French-Canadian mother to cook family favorites.
``But I never got my grandmother's recipes,'' he said with
regret.
Last week, Varricchione and his wife, Joanne, helped
Gucciardi form meatballs while her sauce simmered on the
stove. The Varricchiones' 3-year-old grandson, Carlo
Pizzagalli, popped in and out of the kitchen to visit with
his grandparents and ``Mama Goose,'' as he called her.
The cooks used a small ice cream scoop to measure out each
meatball, a tool Gucciardi said she adopted years ago when
student-athletes helped her to produce meatballs for
fundraising dinners during which they would feed more than
800. ``I had it down to a science,'' she said proudly.
Gucciardi watched her helpers with a kind but careful eye.
``If they have any cracks in them, I reject them,'' she said,
explaining that they would fall apart in the sauce.
As they worked, the scent of meatballs and simmering sauce
filled the kitchen. ``I can smell those meatballs cooking,''
said Gucciardi happily.
``That's always a good thing,'' agreed Varricchione.
The first batch of meatballs emerged from the oven, brown
and sizzling, and the second batch went in. Gucciardi stirred
a generous pinch of sugar into her sauce to balance the
acidity of the tomatoes.
When the meatballs had cooled a little, Carlo tasted one
and gave his full approval, followed by a big hug for the
cook.
The next generation had fallen in love with the cooking of
Mama Gucc.
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