Unless you grew up in Columbus, Ohio, you’ve probably never heard of Johnny Marzetti. By the way, he is not a person, but a casserole.This easy-to-love dish is every kid’s dream: pasta, ground beef, red sauce and cheese, cooked together and served in thick slices like a lasagna. "My first clue that someone is not from Columbus," says Jennifer Williams, owner of Weiland’s Market, "is when they say, ‘What’s the Johnny Marzetti?’"The most common story about the origin of Johnny Marzetti’s comes from the Marzetti family, after whom it is named, of restaurants that have now disappeared. Teresa Marzetti’s family emigrated from Italy in the 1890s and opened a series of Italian restaurants near Ohio State University, where they fed hungry college students on a shoestring budget, and then opened a restaurant on Broad Street in downtown Columbus, across from the Ohio Statehouse. Supposedly the Johnny Marzetti was their invention, a baked casserole named after Teresa’s brother-in-law.However, Eric Lyttle, then editor of Columbus Monthly magazine, questioned the popular story in his 2018 article titled "The Disappearance of Johnny Marzetti." He found that a businessman and real estate owner named John Marzetti, no relation to Teresa, owned restaurants in the area in the 1870s, making him another good candidate as a name for the dish. However, Lyttle found no reference to the dish on the menus of the Marzetti restaurants. However, it appears to have gained status as a main dish in the 1950s, when it is mentioned as a local favorite in the Columbus Dispatch.Longtime Columbus residents retain fond memories of eating it during school lunches or at their favorite neighborhood restaurants. Weiland’s Market, open since 1961, sells pre-packaged one-pound trays of Johnny Marzetti’s. Jennifer Williams, the owner, estimates that Weiland’s sells about 3,400 trays each year.The dish is loved for its simplicity and consistency. "We’ve had the same recipe for years and years," Williams says. "People buy it along with macaroni and cheese because kids eat it and parents eat it. You don’t change the recipe. In the past some people have said, ‘What if…?’ No, don’t touch the Johnny Marzetti recipe. It is inviolable."You can find Johnny Marzetti’s as a Monday lunch special at Tommy’s Diner in the Franklinton neighborhood. It has been on the menu since Tommy and Kathy Pappas opened the diner in 1989. Their son Michael says that an uncle who helped define the menu when the diner was first opened suggested serving Johnny Marzetti, and the diner has offered it regularly ever since. Michael Pappas says they sell about 30 servings every Monday."We add peppers, onions, ground beef," he says. "We used to put cheese in too and bake it, but Hugh J. Dorrian, a longtime city auditor (who was a regular customer), couldn’t eat the cheese. We took it out so he could eat it and never put it back in."Although there is nothing exotic about this dish, it has a local history worth remembering. "It’s our responsibility to preserve culinary traditions," Williams says. "I don’t think we should ever be so advanced culinarily that we don’t eat Johnny Marzetti."
