At my Rotary Club meeting, I learned that today is National Spaghetti Day. I have eaten spaghetti on many occasions, although I cannot say that it is one of my favorites. However, I can say that Italian food is my favorite ethnic food. Once I had some friends make me fresh pasta from scratch! It was divine but looked like a lot of work. They had to make the dough, roll it out and cut it into very thin pieces with a pasta machine. I’m not sure if their opinion of the taste was tempered by the amount of work they put into it. But since I did not make it, I praised its fabulous flavor. I do like spaghetti sauce and meatballs and even think that spaghetti sauce in a jar is pretty tasty. I have also had chicken spaghetti which is popular in the South. According to momswhothink.com, it can best be described as a cheesy casserole made with spaghetti and chicken with some sort of vegetable added. When prepared as an alternative to spaghetti and meatballs, it can be a healthier option as well. Spaghetti is a component in a variety of dishes including chicken tetrazzini. Let’s learn more about spaghetti.
According to Wikipedia, spaghetti is a long, thin, solid, cylindrical pasta. It is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine. Like other pasta, spaghetti is made of milled wheat and water and sometimes enriched with vitamins and minerals. Italian spaghetti is typically made from durum wheat semolina. Usually, the pasta is white because refined flour is used, but whole wheat flour may be added. Spaghettoni is a thicker form of spaghetti, while capellini is a very thin spaghetti.
Originally, spaghetti was notably long, but shorter lengths gained in popularity during the latter half of the 20th century, and now it is most commonly available in 10- to12-inch lengths. A variety of pasta dishes are based on it, and it is frequently served with tomato sauce or meat or vegetables.
Etymology
Spaghetti is the plural form of the Italian word spaghetto, which is a diminutive of spago, meaning "thin string" or "twine."
History
The first written record of pasta comes from the Talmud — the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law and Jewish theology — in the 5th century AD and refers to dried pasta that could be cooked through boiling, which was conveniently portable. Some historians think that Berbers — an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa — introduced pasta to Europe during a conquest of Sicily. In the West, it may have first been worked into long, thin forms in Sicily around the 12th century, as the Tabula Rogeriana of Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi attested, reporting some traditions about the Sicilian kingdom. The Tabula Rogeriana is a description of the world and world map created by al-Idrisi in 1154. He worked on the commentaries and illustrations of the map for 15 years at the court of the Norman King Roger II of Sicily, who commissioned the work around 1138.
The popularity of spaghetti spread throughout Italy after the establishment of spaghetti factories in the 19th century, enabling the mass production of spaghetti for the Italian market.
In the United States around the end of the 19th century, spaghetti was offered in restaurants as Spaghetti Italienne — which likely consisted of noodles cooked past al dente and a mild tomato sauce flavored with easily found spices and vegetables such as cloves, bay leaves and garlic. It was not until decades later that it came to be commonly prepared with oregano or basil.
Ingredients
Spaghetti is made from ground grain (flour) and water. Whole-wheat and multigrain spaghetti are also available.
Production
Fresh spaghetti
At its simplest, imitation spaghetti can be formed using no more than a rolling pin and a knife. A home pasta machine simplifies the rolling and makes the cutting more uniform. But of course, cutting sheets produces pasta with a rectangular rather than a cylindrical cross-section and the result is a variant of fettucine. Some pasta machines have a spaghetti attachment with circular holes that extrude spaghetti or shaped rollers that form cylindrical noodles.
Spaghetti can be made by hand by manually rolling a ball of dough on a surface to make a long sausage shape. The ends of the sausage are pulled apart to make a long thin sausage. The ends are brought together, and the loop pulled to make two long sausages. The process is repeated until the pasta is sufficiently thin. The pasta knobs at each end are cut off leaving many strands which may be hung up to dry.
Fresh spaghetti would normally be cooked within hours of being formed. Commercial versions of fresh spaghetti are manufactured.
Dried spaghetti
The bulk of dried spaghetti is produced in factories using auger extruders. While essentially simple, the process requires attention to detail to ensure that the mixing and kneading of the ingredients produces a homogeneous mix, without air bubbles. The forming dies have to be water-cooled to prevent spoiling of the pasta by overheating. Drying of the newly formed spaghetti has to be carefully controlled to prevent strands sticking together and to leave it with sufficient moisture so that it is not too brittle. Packaging for protection and display has developed from paper wrapping to plastic bags and boxes.
Preparation
Fresh or dry spaghetti is cooked in a large pot of salted, boiling water and then drained in a colander.
In Italy, spaghetti is generally cooked al dente — Italian for "to the tooth," fully cooked but still firm to the bite. It may also be cooked to a softer consistency.
Spaghettoni is a thicker spaghetti which takes more time to cook. Spaghettini is a thinner form which takes less time to cook. Capellini is a very thin form of spaghetti — also called "angel hair spaghetti" or "angel hair pasta" — which cooks very quickly.
Utensils used in spaghetti preparation include the spaghetti scoop and spaghetti tongs.
Italian cuisine
An emblem of Italian cuisine, spaghetti is frequently served with tomato sauce, which may contain various herbs — especially oregano and basil, olive oil, meat or vegetables. Other spaghetti preparations include amatriciana or carbonara. Grated hard cheeses — such as Pecorino Romano, Parmesan and Grana Padano — are often sprinkled on top.
International cuisine
In some countries, spaghetti is sold in cans/tins with sauce.
In the United States, it is sometimes served with chili con carne. Unlike in Italy, in other countries spaghetti is often served with Bolognese sauce.
In the Philippines, a popular variant is Filipino spaghetti, which is distinctively sweet with the tomato sauce sweetened with banana ketchup or sugar. It typically uses a large amount of giniling or ground meat, sliced hot dogs and cheese. The dish dates back to the period between the 1940s and 1960s. During the American Commonwealth Period, a shortage of tomato supplies in the Second World War forced the development of banana ketchup. Spaghetti was introduced by the Americans and was tweaked to suit the local Filipino predilection for sweet dishes.
Sapaketti phat khi mao or spaghetti fried drunken noodle style is a popular dish in Thai cuisine.
Spaghetti dishes
Spaghetti aglio e olio
Spaghetti aglio e olio — Italian for "spaghetti [with] garlic and oil" — is a traditional Italian pasta dish from Naples. It is a typical dish of Neapolitan cuisine and is widely popular. Its popularity can be attributed to it being simple to prepare and the fact that it makes use of inexpensive, readily available ingredients that have long shelf lives in a pantry.
The dish is made by first lightly sautéing thinly sliced garlic in olive oil, sometimes with the addition of red pepper flakes — in which case its name is spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino. The oil and garlic are then tossed with spaghetti cooked in salted water. Finely chopped Italian parsley is then commonly added as a garnish. Grated parmesan or pecorino cheese can be added, although cheese is not included in most traditional recipes. Some recipes recommend adding some of the pasta water to the olive oil to create a sauce, but other recipes recommend simply pouring the oil onto the drained pasta, which doesn’t create a sauce.
Spaghetti alla puttanesca
Spaghetti alla puttanesca is an Italian pasta dish invented in Naples in the mid-20th century and made typically with tomatoes, olive oil, olives, chili peppers, capers, and garlic —with vermicelli or spaghetti pasta.
Various recipes in Italian cookbooks dating back to the 19th century describe pasta sauces very similar to a modern puttanesca under different names. One of the earliest dates from 1844, when Ippolito Cavalcanti, in his Cucina teorico-pratica, included a recipe from popular Neapolitan cuisine, calling it Vermicelli all'oglio con olive capperi ed alici salse. After some sporadic appearances in other Neapolitan cookbooks, in 1931 the Touring Club Italiano's Guida gastronomica d'Italia lists it among the gastronomic specialties of Campania, calling it "Maccheroni alla marinara," although the proposed recipe is close to that of a modern puttanesca sauce. In Naples, this type of pasta sauce commonly goes under the name aulive e chiappariell — olives and capers.
The dish under its current name first appears in gastronomic literature in the 1960s. The earliest known mention of pasta alla puttanesca is in Raffaele La Capria’s “Ferito a Morte” or “Mortal Wound,” a 1961 Italian novel which mentions "spaghetti alla puttanesca come li fanno a Siracusa — spaghetti alla puttanesca as they make it in Syracuse". The sauce became popular in the 1960s, according to the Professional Union of Italian Pasta Makers.
Nonetheless, the 1971 edition of the “Cucchiaio d’argento” or “The Silver Spoon” — one of Italy's most prominent cookbooks — has no recipe with the name puttanesca, but two recipes that are similar: The Neapolitan spaghetti alla partenopea is made with anchovies and generous quantities of oregano; while spaghetti alla siciliana is distinguished by the addition of green peppers. Still again there is a Sicilian style popular around Palermo that includes olives, anchovies and raisins.
In a 2005 article from Il Golfo — a daily newspaper serving the Italian islands of Ischia and Procida — Annarita Cuomo asserted that sugo alla puttanesca was invented in the 1950s by Sandro Petti, co-owner of Rancio Fellone, a famous Ischian restaurant and nightspot. According to Cuomo, Petti's moment of inspiration came when — near closing one evening — Petti found a group of customers sitting at one of his tables. He was low on ingredients and told them he did not have enough to make them a meal. They complained that it was late and they were hungry, saying "Facci una puttanata qualsiasi," meaning "throw together whatever." Petti had nothing more than four tomatoes, two olives and some capers — the basic ingredients for the sugo, "So I used them to make the sauce for the spaghetti," Petti told Cuomo. Later, Petti included this dish on his menu as spaghetti alla puttanesca.
Because "puttana" means roughly "whore" or "prostitute" and puttanesca is an adjective derived from that word, there is a theory that the dish was invented in one of many bordellos in the Naples working-class neighborhood of Quartieri Spagnoli. Alternatively, food historian Jeremy Parzen suggests the name has more to do with the practical use of "puttanesca" in Italian than with its literal definition: "Italians use puttana and related words almost the way we use shit, as an all-purpose profanity, so pasta alla puttanesca might have originated with someone saying, essentially, “I just threw a bunch of shit from the cupboard into a pan.”
The sauce alone is called sugo alla puttanesca in Italian. Recipes may differ according to preferences; for instance, the Neapolitan version is prepared without anchovies, unlike the version popular in Lazio. Spices are sometimes added. In most cases, however, the sugo is a little salty from the capers, olives and anchovies and quite fragrant from the garlic. Traditionally, the sauce is served with spaghetti, although it is also paired with penne, bucatini, linguine and vermicelli.
Garlic and anchovies — omitted in the Neapolitan version — are sautéed in olive oil. Chopped chili peppers, olives, capers, diced tomatoes and oregano are added along with salt and black pepper to taste. The cook then reduces this mixture by simmering and pours it over spaghetti cooked al dente. The final touch is a topping of parsley.
Spaghetti alla Nerano
Spaghetti alla Nerano is an Italian pasta dish invented in the Italian village of Nerano, on the Sorrento peninsula. Its main ingredients are pasta, fried zucchinis and provolone del Monaco or caciocavallo, a type of stretched curd cheese made out of sheep’s or cow’s milk.
Among the many attributions circulating, the main one points to a restaurant owner named Maria Grazia in the mid-1950s. The restaurant still exists to this day.
Spaghetti alle vongole
Spaghetti alle vongole — Italian for "spaghetti with clams" — is a dish that is very popular throughout Italy, especially in Campania where it is part of traditional Neapolitan cuisine.
Palourde or carpet-shell clams — vongola verace — are used; or the small, Mediterranean wedge shell, also known as the Tellina or "bean clam." Both types are also called arselle in Liguria and Tuscany. In America small cherrystone clams may be substituted.
Italians prepare this dish two ways: in bianco i.e., with oil, garlic, parsley,and sometimes a splash of white wine; and in rosso, like the former but with tomatoes and fresh basil, the addition of tomatoes being more frequent in the south. Traditionally, the bivalves are cooked quickly in hot olive oil to which plenty of garlic has been added. The live clams open during cooking, releasing a liquid that serves as the primary flavoring agent. The clams are then added to the firm pasta — spaghetti, linguine or vermicelli — along with salt, blackor red pepper and a handful of finely chopped parsley.
In the Liguria region of Italy, east of Genoa, Spaghetti alle vongole (veraci) means spaghetti with tiny baby clams in the shell — no more than the size of a thumbnail — with a white wine/garlic sauce. Linguine also may be used for the pasta in preference to spaghetti.
Italian American recipes sometimes use cream in this dish, but in its area of origin this would be considered most unorthodox. Gillian Riley considers cream alien to the spirit of Italian cooking, remarking that, "the way cream dumbs down flavor and texture is not appropriate to the subtle flavor and consistency of pasta."
In America cheese is sometimes added to this dish, although Italians believe it overpowers the simple flavors of the clams and of good quality olive oil.
Spaghetti and meatballs
Spaghetti and meatballs or spaghetti with meatballs is an Italian and Italian-American dish consisting of spaghetti, tomato sauce and meatballs. Although it is often claimed that it is not found in Italy, combinations of pasta with meat date back at least to the Middle Ages and are documented in modern Italian cookbooks as maccheroni alle polpette — translated as "spaghetti with meatballs” — and maccheroni alla chitarra con polpette. They are especially popular in southern Italy.
Spaghetti and meatballs was popular among Italian immigrants in New York City, who had access to a more plentiful meat supply than in Italy.
- In 1888, Juliet Corson of New York published a recipe for pasta with meatballs and tomato
sauce.
- In 1909 a recipe for "Beef Balls with Spaghetti" appeared in American Cookery, Volume 13.
- The National Pasta Association — originally named the National Macaroni Manufacturers
Association — published a recipe for spaghetti with meatballs in the 1920s.
- In 1931 Venice Maid in New Jersey was selling canned "spaghetti with meatballs in sauce."
- In 1938 the exact phrase "spaghetti and
meatballs" appeared in a list of canned
foods produced by Ettore Boiardi — later
known as Chef Boyardee — in Milton,
Pennsylvania.
Italian writers and chefs often mock the dish as pseudo-Italian or non-Italian because in Italy meatballs are smaller and are only served with egg-based, baked pasta. However, various kinds of pasta with meat are part of the culinary tradition of the Abruzzo, Apulia, Sicily and other parts of southern Italy. A recipe for rigatoni with meatballs is in “Il cucchiaio d'argento” or “The Silver Spoon,” a comprehensive Italian cookbook.
In Abruzzo, chitarra alla teramana is a standard first course made with spaghetti alla chitarra, small meatballs — polpettine or pallottine — and a meat or vegetable ragù.
Other dishes that have similarities to spaghetti and meatballs include pasta seduta “seated pasta” and maccaroni azzese in Apulia.
Some baked pasta dishes from Apulia combine pasta and meat where meatballs, mortadella or salami are baked with rigatoni, tomato sauce and mozzarella, then covered with a pastry top.
Other pasta recipes include slices of meat rolled up with cheese, cured meats and herbs —involtini in Italian — and braciole — "bra'zhul" in Italian American and Italian-Australian slang — that are cooked within sauce but pulled out to be served as a second course.
Spaghetti Bolognese
Spaghetti Bolognese — sometimes called spaghetti alla Bolognese — is a pasta dish that is popular outside Italy, but not part of traditional Bolognese or even Italian cuisine in general. The dish is generally perceived as inauthentic when encountered by Italians abroad.
It consists of spaghetti served with a sauce made from tomatoes, minced beef, garlic, wine and herbs; sometimes minced beef can be replaced by other minced meats. In this sense, the sauce is actually more similar to Neapolitan ragù from the south of Italy than the northern Bolognese version of ragù.
The dish is often served with grated Parmesan on top, but local cheeses — such as grated cheddar — are also often used. It may be served with a larger proportion of sauce to pasta than is common in genuine Italian spaghetti dishes. The sauce may be laid on top of the pasta — rather than being mixed in, in the Italian manner — or even served separately from it, leaving diners to mix it in themselves.
The origins of the dish are unclear, but it may have evolved in the context of early 20th century emigration of southern Italians to the Americas — particularly the United States — as a sort of fusion influenced by the tomato-rich style of Neapolitan ragù, or it may have developed in immigrant restaurants in Britain in the postwar era. The first mention of this combination appeared in the book “Practical Italian Recipes for American Kitchens,” written by Julia Lovejoy Cuniberti in 1917, and published to raise funds for the families of Italian soldiers at the time fighting in World War I. In the book, Bolognese sauce is recommended for "macaroni or spaghetti." The latter were in fact already widespread in the United States — unlike tagliatelle, traditionally made fresh and difficult to export due to the fragility of its consistence. In countries where it is common, the sauce is often used for lasagna in place of ragù alla Bolognese as in Bologna and elsewhere in Italy.
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