Lasagna
Lasagna, also spelled lasagne, is a wide, flat sheet of pasta, and it is also the name of the baked dish made by stacking those sheets in layers. In Naples, according to the food writer Arthur Schwartz, visitors who ask about the local version hear the same thing "almost without fail". Neapolitans tell them "the really good lasagne is from Bologna". A city with its own lasagna that sends guests elsewhere is a curious thing. It raises questions that this documentary will chase. Where does the word come from, and why do several theories compete to explain it? How old is the dish, and what did the earliest versions look like? And how can one idea, pasta in layers, produce so many different meals across Italy?
In the north of Italy, cooks tend to call the baked dish lasagne, using the plural. In the south, the singular lasagna is favoured. As with most types of pasta, the plural is the standard Italian form, and it means more than one sheet. The singular names a single sheet. English absorbed both habits. British spelling usually follows the northern plural, while American spelling often follows the southern singular. Whichever ending is used, English treats both words as singular nouns that cannot be counted. Both spellings descend from older words, and the origin of those words is still disputed.
A notary in Bologna transcribed a ballad in 1282 that holds the oldest known written reference to lasagna. The ballad is cited under the line "Pur bii del vin, comadre, e no lo temperare", which means "Just drink some wine, my woman, and do not dilute it". It belongs to a collection called the Memoriali Bolognesi, or Bolognese Memorials.
Two years later, in 1284, the chronicler Salimbene di Adam mentioned lagana cum caseo in his Cronica. That phrase means lasagna with cheese. Like most pasta dishes of the time, it was relatively expensive.
The first recorded recipe appeared in the early 14th century, in the Liber de Coquina, or The Book of Cookery. It looked only slightly like the lasagna known today. The cook flattened a fermented dough into thin sheets and boiled them. The sheets were sprinkled with cheese and spices and eaten with a small pointed stick.
Recipes written over the following century suggested boiling the pasta in chicken broth. The dressing was cheese and chicken fat. For the Lenten fast, one adapted recipe called for walnuts.
The Roman author Marcus Gavius Apicius wrote a book called De re coquinaria. It describes a dish similar to traditional lasagna, called lasana or lasanum. In Latin the word meant "container" or "pot". The word itself may be even more ancient than that.
One theory points to the Greek λάγανον (laganon), a flat sheet of pasta dough cut into strips. A relative of that word, λαγάνα (lagana), is still used in Greek today. It names a thin, flat, unleavened bread baked for the Clean Monday holiday.
A rival theory begins with the Greek λάσανα (lasana) or λάσανον (lasanon). These words meant "trivet", "stand for a pot" or "chamber pot". The Romans borrowed the term as lasanum, meaning "cooking pot". On this account, the dish took its name from the vessel rather than from the dough. A third possible clue turns up in an English cookbook.
The Forme of Cury, a cookbook from the 14th century, was prepared by "the chief Master Cooks of King Richard II". It gathered English recipes alongside dishes influenced by Spanish, French, Italian, and Arab cooking. One of them was called loseyn. Its name resembles lasagna, and so does its method, which layers ingredients between sheets of pasta.
The key difference is the tomato. Tomatoes did not reach Europe until after Columbus arrived in the Americas in 1492, so loseyn had no tomato in it. The earliest discussion of the plant in European literature came in a herbal written by Pietro Andrea Mattioli in 1544.
The earliest cookbook found with tomato recipes was published in Naples in 1692. Its author had gathered those recipes from Spanish sources.
Many regional lasagnas were traditionally served at religious celebrations. Those were among the few days of the year when many people ate meat. In Naples, the Carnival version is called lasagne di Carnevale. It is layered with local sausage, small fried meatballs, hard-boiled eggs, ricotta and mozzarella. It is sauced with Neapolitan ragù, a meat sauce.
Italian-American recipes show the mark of this Neapolitan style. They often use ricotta in place of the béchamel sauce found in northern Italian recipes.
Farther along the southern coast of the peninsula, in Apulia, lasagne alla pugliese belongs to Christmas. It swaps the ragù for a broth made from capon. The layers hold veal meatballs, mozzarella, prosciutto and Parmesan.
Lasagne al forno is the version most people outside Italy know. It uses a thick ragù and béchamel, and it is traditionally tied to the Emilia-Romagna region. In the regional capital, Bologna, lasagne alla bolognese layers the pasta with Parmesan and béchamel. Its ragù is built from onions, carrots, celery, butter, tomatoes and finely ground pork and beef.
In Ferrara, lasagne alla ferrarese uses green pasta, coloured by spinach mixed into the dough. It may include pancetta, chicken livers and other meats.
A version from the Marche is known as vincisgrassi. It features mushrooms and offal, such as chicken livers and sweetbreads.
In Genoa, lasagne alla genovese pairs a light béchamel with pesto before baking. Some newer Genoese versions leave out the béchamel and use boiled pasta.
In Veneto, factory-made lasagne are called bardele or lasagnoni. Narrower sheets are mezze lasagne, and those with a ruffled edge are mezze lasagne ricche. Mass-produced sheets with a ruffled edge elsewhere go by lasagna riccia, doppio festone, sciabò and sciablò. For the baked dish, the long, narrow rectangle called lasagna a nastro has become the common choice, though the older square shape survives.
The family has narrower relatives too. There is lasagnette, and its longer cousin lasagnotte, which is called cappellasci in Liguria. In Salento, the "heel" of the Italian "boot", the equivalent is sagne. In the rest of Apulia it is lagana.
In Emilia-Romagna, the dough was traditionally called sfoglia and rolled paper-thin by hand. The work often fell to a professional known as a sfoglina. Southern Italian cooks made their dough from semolina and water. In the north, where semolina was not available, the dough used flour and eggs.
In modern Italy, commercially sold dried pasta may be made only from durum wheat. That is why industrial dried lasagne sheets are made from durum wheat semolina.
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Common questions
Is it lasagna or lasagne?
Both are correct. Lasagne is the Italian plural for sheets of the pasta. In Italy the baked dish is called lasagne more often in the north and lasagna more often in the south. British English tends to follow the plural spelling and American English the singular. In English, both are treated as singular nouns that cannot be counted.
What is the oldest written mention of lasagna?
The oldest known written reference is in a ballad transcribed by a Bolognese notary in 1282. It is part of the Memoriali Bolognesi. In 1284, Salimbene di Adam's Cronica also mentioned lagana cum caseo, meaning lasagna with cheese.
Did early lasagna contain tomatoes?
No. Tomatoes did not arrive in Europe until after Columbus reached the Americas in 1492. The 14th-century English dish loseyn, which resembles lasagna, had no tomato. The earliest cookbook found with tomato recipes was published in Naples in 1692.
Where does the word lasagna come from?
The origin is debated. One theory traces it to the Greek laganon, a flat sheet of dough cut into strips. Another traces it to the Greek lasana or lasanon, meaning a trivet or pot stand, which the Romans borrowed as lasanum, meaning cooking pot.
How does lasagna differ across Italy?
The Neapolitan Carnival version uses sausage, small fried meatballs, hard-boiled eggs, ricotta and mozzarella. Bologna uses ragù, béchamel and Parmesan. Ferrara uses spinach-green pasta. Genoa pairs a light béchamel with pesto. The Marche has vincisgrassi with mushrooms and offal. Apulia has a Christmas version with capon broth.
All sources
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