Claims to fame-ous pasta

As a child, I thought my family was way too ordinary. I cherished the idea that I was of royal blood, accidentally switched at birth by bumbling hospital staff (which happened often, in Jersey City, N.J., in the 1950s). I also cherished any family lore that involved a brush with celebrities. Our claims to fame? My great-aunt owned a pen that once belonged to opera tenor Enrico Caruso. My mom went to school with the daughter of Brooklyn Dodgers great Pee Wee Reese. My sister's best friend attended a sleepover party with Leslie Gore. And — wait for it — my grandparents once met Chef Boyardee.

Yes, unlike marketing personas “Mrs. Butterworth” and “Aunt Jemima,” Chef Boyardee was a real person.

Ettore (Hector) Boiardi came from Piacenza, Italy, and worked, with his brothers Paul and Mario, in restaurant kitchens from New York to Cleveland. (His claim to fame? He catered Woodrow Wilson's wedding.) When grateful patrons asked him for his spaghetti sauce, he sent them home with glass milk bottles full of the stuff. When they kept coming back for refills, he figured he should go into business.

By 1936, the business was such a success it had outgrown its original facilities. By 2011, it had been sold several times and is now owned by food giant ConAgra. The spelling of the name was changed, early on, to make it easier for Americans to pronounce.

This history behind the brand is chronicled in a book by Anna Boiardi, Hector's great-niece and Mario's granddaughter, who has written the just-published “Delicious Memories: Recipes and Stories from the Chef Boyardee Family” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang).

Herself born in Piacenza, Anna Boiardi teaches cooking classes and loves good food. While she does not tout Chef Boyardee products as haute cuisine, she is proud of her great-uncles' and grandfather's accomplishments as entrepreneurs, and proud of a family name that many people associate with childhood comfort food. She remembers her first childhood “cooking” attempts involving Chef Boyardee Pizza Kits. She recalls huge care packages of Chef Boyardee products greeted with great enthusiasm by college roommates.

She wrote her book in part, she said in a recent phone interview, to show that there is a real culinary tradition behind the Boiardi name, a tradition born in the food-proud province of Emilia-Romagna. “I wanted to know there was a real family behind this,” she said.

My parents, being food-proud, Italian-born Americans, would never let us kids eat Chef Boyardee products. But they would have proudly served the recipes in Anna Boiardi's books.

And, did I mention, my brother-in-law once stood in line for ice cream behind Cher? Mom, Dad, wherever you are — I'm ready to claim that throne.

Ÿ Marialisa Calta is the author of “Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the American Family” (Perigee, 2005). More at marialisacalta.com.