Instructions: Fill two 5-gallon pots with equal portions of ground beef (or beef and lamb) and scramble over high heat until well-done.

Blend onions and add to meat, along with beef juice. Blend bell peppers and add to meat. Add tomato paste and cut heat from high (boiling) to simmer.

Add salt, mushrooms, blended chicken meat, sugar, "gunk" and oregano. This should be let to simmer for half a day to a full day. When finished, can freeze basic sauce in jars or ziploc bags.

TO SERVE SAUCE: Thaw 1 1/2 quart container of sauce (four servings). Peel and sliver 4 garlic cloves into blender; add 1 cup wine (use sherry or burgundy) and 1 T brown sugar, blend. Add to sauce and heat until ready.

* This sauce is patterned after that of a Syro-American restaurateur of Ocala whose restaurant, The Blue Bird, no longer exists. However, the spaghetti sauce recipe, one Mama (after trying at first more or less to duplicate the Blue Birds) refined, is immortal. Because of the vegetables used in it, the family tradition has been to make a meal of spaghetti with the sauce alone. The basic sauce is useful also for lasagna and other pasta dishes.

* Mom uses juices from beef roasted with sherry and "gunk" for beef stock.

* The family is still boycotting Hunts anything!

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