Spaghetti and meatballs

Spaghetti and meatballs or spaghetti with meatballs is an Italian-American dish consisting of spaghetti, tomato sauce and meatballs.[1]

Spaghetti and meatballs
Spaghetti and meatballs
CourseMain course
Place of originUnited States
Region or stateNew York City
Serving temperatureHot
Main ingredientsSpaghetti, tomato sauce, meatballs
Close-up view of spaghetti and meatballs

History

It is widely believed that spaghetti and meatballs was an innovation of early 20th-century Italian immigrants in New York City, who had access to a more plentiful meat supply than in Italy.[2][3] The National Pasta Association (originally named the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association) is said to be the first organization to publish a recipe for it, in the 1920s.[4]

Italian writers and chefs often mock the dish as pseudo-Italian or non-Italian[5] because, in Italy, meatballs are smaller and only served with egg-based, baked pasta.[6]

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 (The Silver Spoon), a comprehensive Italian cookbook known as the "bible" of Italian cooking.

In fact, in Abruzzo, chitarra alla teramana, is a long spaghetti-like pasta served with small meatballs (polpettine).[7] It is a traditional made-in-Abruzzo recipe. It is generally a first course (primo piatto) prepared with chitarra pasta, pasta cut with a traditional tool called a chitarra (guitar) with cutting wires which resemble guitar strings. The pasta is seasoned with meat or vegetable ragù and served with pallottine (little balls, which are actually meatballs).

Chitarra alla Teramana (con pallottine)

Other dishes that have similarities to spaghetti and meatballs include pasta seduta (seated pasta) and maccaroni azzese in Apulia.[8][9][10]

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.[11]

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 and spicy meatballs, homemade
  • Restaurant presentation of spaghetti and meatballs with Parmesan cheese.

See also

References
  1. Dickie, John (2008). Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food. Simon and Schuster. pp. 225–226. ISBN 1416554009. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
  2. Frankie Celenza (2018-07-03). "Italian-American Food Never Claimed To Be Italian, So You Can Stop Hating On It". HuffPost.
  3. Allie Lembo (2018-10-11). "7 'Italian' foods Americans eat that you typically won't find in Italy". insider.
  4. America’s Favorite Recipes: The Melting Pot Cuisine, Part 2. 2009. p. 157.
  5. Piva, Filippo (29 July 2014). "Gli spaghetti con le polpette e gli altri falsi miti della cucina italiana all'estero". Wired Italy.
  6. "Pasta". The Atlantic. July 1986.
  7. Winke, Rebecca (March 30, 2017). "Abruzzo's Traditional Foods From Mountain to Sea". ITALY Magazine.
  8. Oretta Zanini de Vita (2009). Encyclopedia of Pasta. p. 315. ISBN 0520944712.
  9. "Maccaroni Azzese". Accademia Italiana della Cucina.
  10. "Ricetta Spaghetti con le polpettine - Le ricette di Paciulina". Le Ricette di Paciulina.it. 4 September 2012. Archived from the original on 20 December 2014. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  11. "Pasta asciutta alla pugliese", in Touring Club of Italy, La cucina del Bel Paese, p. 292

Further reading
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