‘Jersey Shore’: Pauly DelVecchio Explains the Real Reason Sunday Dinner Became a Thing
Sunday dinners are a tradition in the Jersey Shore house. During the early episodes of the MTV series, the roommates would sit down to enjoy a meal together each week, regardless of the drama going on in the house. While many fans might think Sunday dinners happened organically, something was going on behind the scenes that inspired the roommates to start having dinner together. During a Zoom call with Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Pauly DelVecchio shared the real reason Sunday dinners came to be on Jersey Shore.
Sunday dinners bring the ‘Jersey Shore’ roommates together
Sitting down for dinner at the end of each week became a ritual during Jersey Shore‘s original run. “Sunday family dinner was very important because it brought us together,” Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino told Vulture. “Someone would set the table, and someone would make the salad, and we would all eat together and say grace. We came together [at] Sunday dinner and put our differences aside, and we always had differences.”
Now, Sunday dinners are something fans have come to expect from the roommates. During a discussion on Reddit, Jersey Shore fans analyzed why the series remains MTV’s “highest rated show.” For one fan, it’s all about the rituals, including Sunday dinner.
“[Jersey Shore] was just really real,” a fan commented. “The casting was just impeccable. They made up their own catchphrases, had nicknames, [and] they had all these rituals like GTL, T-shirt time, [and] Sunday dinner.”
Pauly DelVecchio shares what Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino cooks best
Sorrentino was often the one preparing meals in the Jersey Shore house. From cooking dinner on Sundays to grilling up burgers in the wee hours of the morning after a night out at the club, Sorrentino was the head chef in the Jersey Shore house.
During our conversation with DelVecchio, Showbiz had to ask what Sorrentino cooks best for the Jersey Shore roommates. “Mike would throw down on a Sunday,” DelVecchio recalled. “His sausage and peppers was really good,” he added. As DJ Pauly D explained, the roommates always kept the ingredients for sausage and peppers handy so Sorrentino could make the meal “whenever he felt like whipping it up.”
As Sorrentino previously revealed to Vulture, the chicken parmesan was another big hit in the shore house. “They loved the fresh tomato sauce,” he told the outlet. “We would make sautéed vegetables. We would grill steaks and chicken.”
The ‘Jersey Shore’ roommates weren’t allowed out on Sundays
During the early days of Jersey Shore, the roommates were often out at the same Jersey hot spots. From Headliners to Bamboo and Karma, the roommates were often at the same bars because they were approved filming locations. “We have a book that tells us the places that we’re allowed to film,” DelVecchio told Bustle in 2018. “We tell the producers where we wanna go [and] we can’t go alone.”
Producer SallyAnn Salsano and her team would scout locations and get permission from each venue to film. The approved areas lived in a binder for the cast to peruse. But on Sundays, the roommates were asked to stay in.
As DelVecchio revealed on our Zoom call, there’s a surprising behind-the-scenes reason Sunday dinner became a thing on the original Jersey Shore. “Normally [Sorrentino would cook] on a Sunday because [producers] made us stay in,” the reality star said. Regardless of why Sunday dinners became a thing, fans are glad the tradition has continued in Jersey Shore: Family Vacation.
