Family is best ingredient for Mama Galloni’s restaurant

Date: 11/25/2014

FEEDING HILLS – Mama Galloni’s slogan, “Bringing our table to yours,” is not a marketing trap designed to create a false familial feeling. No, that kind of ploy is not necessary for the almost year-old restaurant. 

Some business owners find it best to keep family and work separate, but for the Couture family, that can never be. The overwhelming sense of family is the core of their business.

Betty “Mama” Couture began her pasta making classes after she retired. It did not take long for the number of students to outgrow her and her husband’s house, so her two children, Keri Regnier and Gary Couture, decided to expand, with help from her daughter-in-law, Barbara.

Now, located on Springfield Street in Feeding Hills, the family makes fresh Italian food daily, and Betty has a space for “School of Pasta.”

“My husband’s glad we have the house back to normal,” Couture said.

The kitchen space allows her four-week class to accommodate her students, varying from couples to daughters and mothers. They learn how to make pasta, raviolis, tortellini and gnocchi, and Couture said even those who are tragic in the kitchen come out the other side as pasta making pros.

“They come in, ‘I’m not good at boiling water.’ That’s OK we’ll show you,” Couture said. “At the end of four weeks they make pasta. Their hands are in it. The only way they’re going to learn that dough is if their hands are in it.”
Beyond the ability to make a cooked meal, students trust Mama Galloni’s to bring them back to their own families.

“They’ll come in tears and say, ‘My nonny used to do this and I never paid attention’ or ‘My mom did it and I never watched her. She used to tell me to learn, but I was in too much of a hurry.’ The memories are all flooding back to them,” Couture said. “At the end, they tell me they’re family.”

For her, the process is tied with her own mother, the original Mama Galloni. Couture’s mother made the family’s pasta by hand. In fact, Couture did not even know that some families did not do this.

“She taught us well. She really, really did,” Couture said. “I was maybe about 10 and I realized that there was pasta in a box in the store. She said, ‘No, it’s no good for you.’”

Even after this discovery, there was no way that she would trade the convenience of boxed pasta for the quality of homemade.
“You put that homemade pasta in your mouth and you’ll never go back,” Couture said.

That idea not only works for Couture’s cooking classes but for the food she and her children make daily. Everything they put out for customers is made fresh and from scratch. She said people are learning slowly that if they want the first pick, they have to get in early because once something is gone, it’s gone until the next day.

“There are no preservatives in our food,” Couture said. “It’s like Costco. If you don’t buy it when you see it, then you’ve got to wait until the next time.”

The restaurant welcomes taking a peak into the kitchen. The wall that separates the main room in the kitchen is cut out, and Keri, Gary and Mama are known to pass food right over the wall to customers.

Working alongside her children, who run the show, has been something that Couture has cherished. After losing her middle son, Todd, almost three years ago, the extra time spent with her children has become even more invaluable.

“You realize even more. Family was always important to me, but it even more so, enhanced it to know that I have two of [my kids] day and night and we’re with them,” Couture said.  “They argue now and then, but it’s good. In most Italian families, whoever talks the loudest wins.”

In the corner of the main room, a television mounted to the wall plays a slideshow of pictures of their homemade meals and the grandchildren who help on the weekends. While picture after picture flies by, it becomes clear that the Couture and her family really are bringing their table to yours.

“That’s important because that’s family,” Couture said. “That’s Italian family.”

Mama Galloni’s is located at 1325 Springfield St. in Feeding Hills. You can check out the menu or get more information about “Betty’s School of Pasta” by calling 372-4305 or going to their website, www.mamagalloni.com.