{"id":458327,"date":"2026-09-09T15:36:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T15:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/458327\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T15:36:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T15:36:27","slug":"pizzios-pasta-sauce-brings-grandmas-recipe-to-clovis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/458327\/","title":{"rendered":"Pizzio\u2019s pasta sauce brings grandma\u2019s recipe to Clovis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard and Nancy Burchfiel of Clovis were looking to reconnect when they went on a date night in April. They have two children together, as well as busy careers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is our passion \u2014 what are we really good at doing?\u201d said Nancy, a certified family nurse practitioner at Valley Children\u2019s Hospital in Madera. \u201cAnd that\u2019s cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n

They decided to launch a pasta sauce company.<\/p>\n

In their family, the ultimate expression of home is a pasta sauce (or gravy, as it\u2019s also known by) that Richard\u2019s great-grandmother, Marie Pizzio, \u201cperfected\u201d and raised the entire family on. Marie was a woman known for her generosity, and there was frequently a giant pot of sauce on the stove to feed anyone who stopped by.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s what they decided to can and bring to market: Pizzio\u2019s Pasta Sauce<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Richard and Nancy applied for the business license that night, and then spent the next several weeks taking classes, testing recipes and getting certified to safely can and sell their pasta sauce, including both getting a food handler\u2019s license.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had no idea what we were doing,\u201d said Richard, the chief informational officer at Central Valley Meat Co.<\/p>\n

\"Richard Richard and Nancy Burchfiel have started offering Marie Pizzio’s Pasta Sauce Gravy, a pasta sauce based on a family recipe. Photographed Friday, Sept. 4, 2026 in Clovis. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA ezamora@fresnobee.com Finding the original flavor<\/p>\n

The version of the sauce Richard made for the past several years was not the version the entire family grew up on. Great-Grandma Marie, who served the sauce every Thursday and Sunday night for decades, could stand next to someone and tell them how to make the recipe, but it would never turn out the way hers did.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would always be a dash here, a dash there,\u201d Richard said.<\/p>\n

Since she\u2019d died in 2014, the recipe was thought to be lost to time.<\/p>\n

To make sure the sauce was safe to can and would be shelf-stable for at least a year, Richard began modifying the recipe. His grandmother, Susanne Pizzio Foster, is Marie\u2019s eldest daughter, and after one experiment, she told him he\u2019d gotten the recipe exactly right.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother\u2019s sauce had a specific taste, and there was a freshness about it,\u201d Foster said.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t realize how right they\u2019d gotten it until a few weeks after that.<\/p>\n

The house Marie lived in is still in the family. She and her husband, Dominick, originally lived in New Jersey, but moved out to Fresno after World War II. (He was a tomato worker for some time before joining PG&E.) The house is being remodeled, and so that meant cleaning out the kitchen.<\/p>\n

There was an envelope filled with old newspaper clippings, photos and cards hidden in the cabinet above the refrigerator.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone in our family is pretty short,\u201d Foster said. \u201cI have no idea how it got up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside the larger envelope, tucked away in a Hallmark envelope, was the original recipe, in Marie\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

The family believes that they found the original recipe at the exact moment they were meant to find it.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrannie was like, \u2018now I want you to find it\u2019,\u201d Nancy said.<\/p>\n

\"Susanne Susanne Foster, center, with Richard and Nancy Burchfiel, top, and their children Hannah and Logan, have started offering Marie Pizzio’s Pasta Sauce Gravy, a pasta sauce based on a family recipe. Photographed Friday, Sept. 4, 2026 in Clovis. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA ezamora@fresnobee.com Family History, Front and Center<\/p>\n

Even the design of the can is simmered in family history. The photo on the front of the can is one that Marie sent to Dominick during WWII, and the company\u2019s motto \u2014 \u201cPhones down, pass the bread\u201d \u2014 reaches back to the rules of the table that the entire family grew up on: Everyone talks about their day at the dinner table.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur kids roll their eyes at it, but we feel it\u2019s very important,\u201d Richard said.<\/p>\n

All jars are canned by Richard and Nancy on the weekends at Clovis Culinary Center. They are available at Clovis Meat Market, and Pizzio will also be at ClovisFest and other events in Clovis.<\/p>\n

Every purchase comes with a recipe from the cookbook Richard\u2019s mother made for daughters-in-law entering the family many Christmases ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a whirlwind,\u201d Richard said. \u201cYou think it\u2019s just pasta sauce, but it really is generations of love going into a jar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Marie Marie Pizzio’s Pasta Sauce Gravy is seen served over meatballs Friday, Sept. 4, 2026 in Clovis. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA ezamora@fresnobee.com \"Richard Richard and Nancy Burchfiel have started Pizzio’s, offering Marie Pizzio’s Pasta Sauce Gravy, a pasta sauce based on a family recipe. Photographed Friday, Sept. 4, 2026 in Clovis. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA ezamora@fresnobee.com \"Richard Susanne Foster, pictured with jars of Marie Pizzio’s Pasta Sauce \u201cGravy\u201d, a pasta sauce based on a family recipe. Photographed Friday, Sept. 4, 2026 in Clovis. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA ezamora@fresnobee.com
\n Follow More of Our Reporting on Uniquely Merced<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Amber Hair<\/a><\/p>\n

The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n

Amber Hair (they\/them) is the food and restaurants reporter and influencer. Amber has been in professional journalism for more than a decade, writing for outlets like the Orlando Sentinel, The Villages Daily Sun, the Pacific Coast Business Times and others. In their spare time, they enjoy going to concerts, reading and spending time with their cats.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard and Nancy Burchfiel of Clovis were looking to reconnect when they went on a date night in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-458327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}