Yesterday at the Yellow Springs Street Festival, we stopped at one of my favorite book stores, Epic Books on Xenia Avenue. Its comparable to Ohio Bookstore in Over-the-Rhine Cincinnati and the Book Loft in Columbus’ German Village. Of course I gravitated toward the Ohio recipe book section and found a 1970 cookbook called “Favorite Recipes from Shandon, Ohio”, a small town near Oxford, Ohio, famous for its Strawberry Festival. I found some cool faves, a recipe for goetta, city chicken, & 7 layer salad, Ruth Lyon’s Christmas Jello Salad, and one for a casserole I’d never heard of called “Ben Getty’ or John Ben Ghetti.
It was a simple casserole of the 70s made with ground beef, onion, green pepper, a can of tomato soup and cream of mushroom soup, a can of peas, mushrooms, and pimentos, and spaghetti noodles. thus the “Ghetti” portion of its name The recipe reminded me of another famous Ohio 1970s casserole I knew about called Johnny Marzetti, invented in the 1920s in Columbus, Ohio, by Italian immigrant Teresa Marzetti at her and her husband Joseph Marzetti’s restaurant.
Before opening the original restaurant in 1896, Marzetti wrote, “We will start a new place and serve good food. At a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but we will serve good food.”
She sought a simple main course, easy and cheap to make. It had to be scalable to feed the masses, the starved college students from Ohio State University down the street. The dish became known as Johnny Marzetti, named afer Teresa’s brother-in-law. Sounds like an Italian opera of forbidden love – why would she name it after her brother-in-law and not her husband? There’s a story there for sure. The original recipe included ground beef, onions, cheese, tomato sause and macaroni noodles. It was a sensation at 45 cents a serving.
My Aunt Betty had a similar casserole that was her signature dish at family gatherings which included Italian pork sausage, tomato sauce, spiral pasta and cheese. I loved it, but we never called it Johnny Marzetti – to us it was just Aunt Betty’s casserole. Baking it did something to the spiral pasta that made it extra chewy and delicious.
Johnny Marzetti has different names and variations depending on where in Ohio you cook it. It can be called John’s Dinner, Johnny Mazuma, Yum-a-Zetti, John Ben Getti, Johnny M, John Marzetti, Marsetti, Johnny Mazetti, Hamburger Casserole, Beef and Macaroni Casserole and, for baby boomers and Generation Xers in the Columbus area elementary-school cafeterias, the memorable Glop. So there it was, John Ben Ghetti – a variation on the original Johnny Marzetti, but refined with peas, pimentos, and green peppers (or mangos as we called them mid century in Cincinnati).
I have not been able to find any references to who nameplated John Ben Ghetti – more local recipe book investigations needed. But surely some ingenious housewife looking to hide or include veggies in the meat and starch diet of mid century America thought this up.
By the 1920s Johnny Marzetti was so popular it began showing up in cookbooks outside of Columbus, Ohio, as far away as Wisconsin. Like they introduced SPAM to Hawaii, American soldiers took it down to Panama during World War II and it became so popular there, it was named the national dish. In Panama, they call it Johnny Mazetti and add olives and Arturo sauce.
The food scientists at Betty Crocker saw how popular these hamburger and tomato based casseroles were in homes and made an even easier-to-prepare boxed version, introducing it to America in 1971 as the first Hamburger Helper. It came in five flavors – Beef Noodle, Potato Stroganoff, Hash, Rice Oriental, and Chili Tomato (the closest flavor to Johnny Marzetti).
At its release in 1971 food prices were high due to post Vietnam war inflation. Hamburger Helper mix came to the rescue with its super-power ability to stretch one pound of ground beef into five servings for a family meal. It combined the meat in one pot with macaroni noodles and processed ‘cheese’ spread, that made it an ooey-goey sensation, and sales took off. More than one in four households purchased it in its first year. Hamburger Helper was certainly a staple on my childhood dinner table.
So enter the Columbus Public Schools who caught wind of the casseroles economics and deliciousness and started serving it in their scratch kitchens. This made the casserole a staple dish in school kitchens throughout Ohio. But by 2018, there were few schools serving it. The West Branch district, near Alliance, served Johnny Marzetti to elementary and middle school students on Tuesdays, with corn, a mixed green salad, fried apples and milk. Miller High School and Millcreek Elementary in the Southern Local district near New Straitsville serves Johnny Marzetti, steamed peas, fruit cocktail and fat-free milk on a Wednesday. The closest public school district to Columbus with Johnny Marzetti on the menu was Lakewood Local Schools in Hebron, near Buckeye Lake.
So why has it fallen out of favor in Ohio public schools? Well, Michelle Obama was an accessory to its massive disappearance. It was the law that reformed school lunches in 2010. When Barack Obama first took office, Michelle endeavored to use her newfound position and influence to battle childhood obesity. It was a noble cause, and her passion became the inspiration for the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010. That law reimbursed districts that served meals with more green vegetables, fruits and whole grains—none of which finds its way into even the most creative Johnny Marzetti recipe.
A school gets an extra 6 cents for meals that meet the standards, and menus must be certified. They need to have a bean or legume, an orange or red vegetable, a starch, a dark green vegetable and whole grains, even in the pizza crust.
In marches John Ben Ghetti to the rescue, or one would think, with its peas, green peppers, and red pimento peppers. But alas, no Ohio school systems have turned to JBG to keep the yummy dish alive in the hearts and stomachs of the next generation of Ohio public school kids.
dannwoellertthefoodetymologist 