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Italian or British? Writer solves riddle of spaghetti bolognese
- woliveirajr 10y ago> What he discovered was that spaghetti has been consumed and produced in Bologna and in the neighbouring countryside since the 16th century. It's funny to read about someone denying eating some kind of food. But, then: > Italians’ rigid adherence to cooking traditions, Valdiserra said, is linked to the false belief that they have not changed much over centuries. So it becomes a matter of pride and tradition. I'm curious what future generations will think about our habits: raw foods vs processed ones, vegetarian vs meat farms, diversity vs individually tailored according to genetic profile and needs.
- trumbitta2 10y agoBTW, in Italy we call them spaghetti alla bolognese
- smegel 10y agoWhich means what exactly?
- lexhaynes 10y ago"Spaghetti in the the style of Bologna", as opposed to what can perhaps be interpreted in the English phrasing as "bolognese spaghetti"
- andreapaiola 10y agoalla = "a type of seasoning/condiment/cooking" Examples: Pasta alla carbonara Pizza alla marinara Trenette al pesto
- gkya 10y agoLet's note that grammatically 'alla', 'al', etc. is 'at/in/towards' + 'the', but in this idiomatic use gives the meaning in the parent comment.
- jaclaz 10y agoYes and no, it is "worse" than that. In this particular use (for bolognese or pescatora, amatriciana, etc.) "a/al/alla" means "in the style of", BUT when it is pasta al ragù (al pesto, al pomodoro, etc., i.e. other main ingredients) the "a/al/alla" means "with". And we have also our own exceptions, one says "Pappardelle sul cinghiale" (pappardelle is yet another type of pasta), literally "pappardelle on the hog", BUT you don't have the "a" in "spaghetti aglio e olio (e peperoncino)". As a side note a "ragù" has nothing to do with the (usually horrible) tomato sauce that is used for "spaghetti bolognese" outside Italy.
- andreapaiola 10y agoNever heard "pappardelle sul cinghiale"! Sort of slang, maybe. Mai sentito parlare prima di pappardelle sul cinghiale, è un uso abbastanza dialettale mi sa. Ovviamente non si può non concordare sul ragù. ;)
- jaclaz 10y agoWell, they are typical of an area, and they are called like them there, so it is maybe somehow a "dialect" but I would rather say an "idiom": https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pappardelle_sul_cinghiale https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pappardelle_sul_cinghiale https://books.google.it/books?id=M_vYmUgN3e0C&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.it/books?id=M_vYmUgN3e0C&pg=PA289&lpg=P... you won't find, in any restaurant or "trattoria" in the area written on a menu "al" cinghiale. It is typical - I believe - of "pappardelle", they are also sometimes (less common recipes) "sulla lepre" or "sul papero".
- tomp 10y agoEven if not Italian, why on Earth would spaghetti bolognese be British? I've eaten them in many countries around Europe...
- joeminichino 10y agothat's right, they are american. Sicilian immigrants could barely afford beef in their native Sicily, so when they started having a little more money in their pockets in America, they started adding beef to everything. Which is where spaghetti with meatballs comes from as well. No italian has ever had spaghetti with meatballs.
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- Heliosmaster 10y agoSpaghetti bologese != Spaghetti meatballs
- Symbiote 10y agoAmerica isn't the only country to have had lots of immigration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italians_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italians_in_the_United_Kingdom
- dghf 10y agoViz. Peter Capaldi, current Dr Who. Something like 1.5% of the Scottish population has Italian ancestry.
- KON_Air 10y agoYeah, the idea British can cook, let alone have better dishes then Italy, is outrageous to being with.
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- pmontra 10y agoLol, everybody in Italy has had "spaghetti bolognese". We call them "spaghetti al ragù" and learn the name "spaghetti bolognese" the first time we are exposed to international gastronomy, possibly the first vacation abroad. The issue here is about spaghetti not being the proper kind of pasta for the "ragù" sauce, tagliatelle is the traditional one. Ok, noted, but ragù is still a common sauce for spaghetti and maccaroni. Maybe not in high priced restaurants but definitely at most people's home. Basically you use what you have. Now back to Python vs Ruby vs Node... :-)
- drtse4 10y agoA riddle? Did someone ever really think that this was a british dish and that no one in Italy could come up with a tomato+meat sauce?
- dghf 10y agoSimplifying somewhat, most Britons believe it's a genuine Italian dish, and most Italians believe it's a horrible British parody of their cuisine.
- contingencies 10y agoSo if the official research states that you can vary the sauce to include oregano, basil, and garlic, optionally adding various cheeses, and you can vary the pasta between tagliatelle (fresh egg pasta) and dried spaghetti (and you can vary the name between spaghetti al ragù, spaghetti bolognese or spaghetti alla bolognese) then that's really a pretty wide range of dishes. Interesting that restaurants focused on serving the dish with tagliatelle, in part because fresh pasta cooked faster ... fast food, not high cuisine. White tablecloths eat your heart out! In the same spirit, I wonder if we will create a tagliatelle version for Infinite Food one day? http://8-food.com/ http://8-food.com/
- megablast 10y agoOnly in Italy, where slightly different shaped pasta magically means a completely different meal.
- contingencies 10y agoHehe, that's some well placed cynicism. I've been looking in to what makes a noodle dish (normally a noodle soup) from various parts of Burma/China/Laos/Thailand/Vietnam/Japan unique, and it's been fascinating. I would say there's far more variety in Asia than in Italy.
- russellbeattie 10y agoI've always found it interesting how native American foods (tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, chilis, corn, strawberry, pineapple, etc.) have been integrated into "traditional" cuisines around the world. Italian spaghetti sauce or Thai peanut sauce, etc. have only been available for a few hundred years max... Still a lot, but some other traditions go back millennia.
- frostburg 10y agoA lot of really old recipes, say, those dating to the roman era or even only the renaissance, are very unpalatable for modern tastes.
- vollmond 10y agoDo you know of any good repository of (as far as we know) accurate recipes from that sort of time? I'd love to be able to cook a Roman dinner one night or something.
- russellbeattie 10y agoHere's a video series of foods from the 1700s - which is a few hundred years after what you're talking about, but still interesting: [Jas. Townsend](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxr2d4As312LulcajAkKJYw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxr2d4As312LulcajAkKJYw)
- wizardforhire 10y agoThe Apicius Cookbook https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apicius https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apicius (Pdf) http://kitchenproject.com/history/apicius/Apicius.pdf http://kitchenproject.com/history/apicius/Apicius.pdf
- maw 10y agoHaving spent very little time in the Roman Empire I can't vouch for its authenticity, but http://www.passthegarum.co.uk/ http://www.passthegarum.co.uk/ looks like an interesting source of recipes.
- xutopia 10y agoThis article is such click bait.
- stefantalpalaru 10y ago> the meat sauce served on tables across Britain is corrupted by herbs such as oregano and basil, sometimes – gasp – even garlic Changing the pasta type is fine, but when you add ingredients that drastically change the taste of the dish you better give it a new name.
- Tade0 10y agoWhere I come from we have this dish called "fish greek style" which apparently is known in Greece as "fish russian style" and not known in Russia at all. Or so the urban legend says. I happen to currently live in Bologna, I've had the local tagliatelle al ragù and all I can say is that it makes so much more sense to have it this way instead of using spaghetti - it's simply better.
- gotofritz 10y ago> Controversy surrounding the dish resurfaced last month, when Antonio Carluccio became the latest in a long line of chefs to complain that one of Britain’s favourite “Italian” dishes did not, in fact, exist in Italy Food snobs like those really get on my nerves. I mean, it's one thing when one starts adding cream to carbonara (or make it with just cream, like they do in the UK) but swapping spaghetti for tagliatelle is hardly a crime. And like the article said, people in Italy are not that anal about the type of pasta - ragù is one of the universal sauces you serve with anything. I grew up eating Spaghetti al Ragù on sundays in my local trattoria. Besides, ragù alla bolognese is only ONE type of ragù. There are others, even if we just to stick to the traditional ones, which are eaten with all sort of pasta shapes: hare ragù (pappardelle), sicilian ragù (eaten with small ring pasta), neapolitan ragù (maccheroni or rigatoni), lamb ragù, pork ragù... And throwing a hissy fit for adding a bit of garlic, surely, it doesn't go well with the sauce, but it's hardly a crime against humanity.
- andreapaiola 10y agoI definitely agree.
- IlPeach 10y agoI thought the whole issue was around the spaghetti meatballs, not the bolognese which is well known in the majority of Italy. Duh.