06/17/2026
With Fathers Day approaching I wanted to share this.
This is the last jar of Nini’s marinara sauce. My father started jarring it over 20 years ago, before restaurants jarring their own sauce was a common thing. At the time, I thought, “What a crazy idea.” This man was so determined to jar our sauce, yet he could barely read English — but he was determined.
With the determination of an Italian-American immigrant, he had enough working knowledge of English to pass his citizenship test, and I was often amazed by the amount of American history he had in his wheelhouse. He taste-tested several jars of national brands and decided he did not want to alter our in-house recipe at all. So we imported special tomatoes with a lower pH to sustain the jarring process, which we learned was important for safety and shelf life.
He found a small jarring facility in Greenfield, where he hand-poured our sauce into the jars and sealed them with the help of a local labeling company. He created the labels and learned how to gather the information for the nutrition facts and a barcode for grocery stores. The sauce was sold at many small local grocery stores in the area and was quite successful.
He stopped making it when he became sick, and this is probably the last jar in existence — one of my prize possessions. It reminds me of how much strength and determination someone can have in overcoming adversity, and of course, it reminds me of my Father.
