Well the first thing is that if your goal was to hit my curiosity, you've done it.
The second is a bit weird.
Time ago someone told me that in Finland (or Lapland or somewhere in Scandinavia) they use 13 or so different words to say "snow". Every word is a noun descibing a different sort of snow. "Snow" is simply too generic for them. When you have to do with it everyday, you want to know which kind of snow is falling today.
It's a bit like beer. In Italy, you can hear people calling simply "beer" whatever fizz they're drinking, from Pils to Ale, from Lager to Stout, from Weiss to some Belgian swill.
So. Your "pasta sauce" sounds even more generic to an Italian ear. If I ask to someone "What do you want for lunch?", then "Let's eat some pasta" would basically mean that he doesn't care what we're going to eat, but he just prefers pasta than some meat.
While "sauce" is so generic that is not even used referred to a condiment for pasta. If you're going to use a sauce to dress your pasta, you would either use the exact name of the sauce (each italian knows no less than 50 types) or one of the sub-types of sauce followed by one or two main ingredients.
IE, for Tomato based sauces:
"Pomarola with Tuna"
"Sugo with Tuna"
"Tuna Ragù"
So again: Bolognese is a ragù, Puttanesca is a sugo, Arrabbiata is a pomarola.
Also. I could give you my recipe for a perfect "Meat Ragù" old Romagna-style, but I'd have to warn you that slight changes are possible depending on which pasta it's intended to dress. Ragù for Tagliatelle must be a bit different from the one for Lasagne, because it's different the way these pastas "take" the sauce.
I save you from hearing stuff on sauces without tomato.
Well, if my clarifications didn't scare you, this is the callenge:
gameID=14735gameID=14736I'm very curous to know what 15 year trial-and-error produced for an American tongue! :D :D :D