When Ana Mancini packed bags for America in 1921, she didn’t leave her trove of recipes behind in Bari, Italy. On Sundays in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, her family would gather to feast on her cooking. When her grandson, Dan Mancini, was 15, he started helping his Nona Ana in the kitchen, eventually committing several of her recipes to memory.
Flash forward to July, 2009, when Mancini and his Mama Mancini’s Famous Meat Balls and Sunday Sauce were featured on The Martha Stewart Show. By now married 25 years and a longtime resident of South Orange, Mancini left a Garment Center career in 2006 and with the help of friend and neighbor Carl Wolf, who had food industry experience, began to market his nona’s meatballs. The hurdle (cleared in 2007) was developing a production method faithful to Ana’s: browning, then braising the meatballs for hours in her tomato sauce. Now the meatballs (which we tasted, and liked) are available nationally (frozen, in packs of six, with sauce, at $5.99 a pound) and at all Jersey Shop-Rite, Pathmark, and Kings stores, Garden of Eden in Hoboken, Eden Gourmet in South Orange, and online at mamamancinis.com.