1st-time judge tastes the best of Reno Italian festival sauce cooking

The Tallerico family poses for a portrait at the Italian Festival in Reno on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024.

Crowded streets, Italian music blaring over the speakers and wafts of oregano throughout the air. If you ignored the surrounding casinos, and possibly drank the full value of the $25 wine walk, you might think you’d stumbled into Venice or Rome last weekend.

The ROW hosted its 42nd Great Italian Festival on Saturday and Sunday in downtown Reno. One of the Columbus Day weekend event’s longest traditions is the family spaghetti sauce cookoff. This year, 34 families cooked up recipes passed down through generations and submitted them to be judged by a panel of four, including this reporter.

The families were supplied with the requested raw ingredients by the Eldorado. Many began making their sauces in the early morning hours. Wooster High School students assisted in retrieving the sauces from the families for the anonymous judging.

Judges for the sauce cookoff, from left: JLynn, on-air personality for Reno Media Group; Ivano Centemeri, executive chef of the Eldorado; Debbie McCarthy, Reno-based food and travel influencer; and Ariel Smith, food and drink reporter for the RGJ.

Highs and lows of the first day of judging included several burnt and oily marinaras, but also many delicious and well-seasoned sauces.

On Sunday, the only negatives included two sauces that had been over spiced with cinnamon and some that were slightly runny.

Shelley Tallerico has been cooking alongside her family in the Italian Festival since 2017, when they took third place. In 2021, they placed second, she said. This year they cooked on Sunday and simply enjoyed the atmosphere and the competition.

She says she will come back to the sauce cookoff until she’s not able to, and then her daughter will take over.

“It’s always really emotional for me. It’s my dad’s sauce and my grandma’s sauce,” Tallerico said. “A cousin showed up today who we haven’t seen in 30 years. I let him taste the sauce and he said, ‘It tastes like grandma’s sauce.’”

Keeping with the spirit of large Italian families, a cousin of the Tallericos’ competed Saturday in a different booth but wore the Tallerico shirt to show her support on Sunday.

Kelly Campanile has been cooking in the festival since 2020 alongside her mom and dad. They won in 2022, she said. The family does not sell their sauce so for now it remains available “at just the Italian Festival and whatever we cook at home for friends and family,” she said.