The origin story of lasagna might not start in Italy

Lasagna is an Italian recipe with almost as many variations as spaghetti and pizza. There’s always a conversation surrounding the authenticity of a recipe, and the answer is always a little murky. After all, the history of recipes is complex and lasagna is no exception. Debates usually revolve around what should be in the dish, from the type of meat to the cheese. To get to the bottom of this question, we must start with the origin of the word lasagna.

Most theories about the ancient origins of lasagna rely on etymology, or the study of words and their roots. In Greek, the word laganon refers to a dish made of thin strips of dough, leading some researchers to believe that laganon is the ancestral prototype of lasagna. On the other hand, the ancient Romans spoke Latin, and lasanum was the Latin word for a specific cooking vessel, leading some historians to point to it as the root of the word lasagna. Aside from the wording, it wasn’t until medieval times that a concrete idea of ​​the dish began to form.

One of the first written accounts of lasagna is found in a Bolognese poem written in 1282. Meanwhile, the first documented recipe for lasagna appeared in an Italian cookbook dating from the 1300s. The Accademia Italiana della Cucina, a company that records Italian culinary history, claims that lasagna is indeed a classic dish from Emilia-Romagna (a region in northern Italy). So while lasagna technically could have started in Greece, the modern incarnation is still very Italian.

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The many styles of lasagna

The type of lasagna you get will often depend on where you’re eating. A real Bolognese lasagna will have ragù sauce, béchamel sauce, parmesan and nutmeg. Spinach is often incorporated as a two-ingredient pasta batter or as a direct addition to another part of the cooking process. Different regions of Italy have their own ways of doing it, and Campania is home to the other most popular type of lasagna.

A Neapolitan-style lasagna, also known as Lasagna di Carnevale, seems to dominate some restaurants in the United States. The bulk of Italians who immigrated to America came from southern Italy. So it would make sense for their lasagna to become the standard in the United States. This version uses ground beef or pork, often formed into meatballs cooked in a thin white wine and tomato paste sauce. It is then topped with ricotta, parmesan, basil and sometimes mozzarella or sausage. Carnival lasagna may also contain hard-boiled eggs, but many people tend to omit this ingredient today.

Lasagna has lived many lives and everyone will have their own preferences as to the “right” way to prepare it. Liguria mixes its pesto with basil, Sicily adds eggplant, and another version from Campania uses veal and pecorino. Lasagna can take as little as 30 minutes or several hours, but the best recipe is one that you love to cook.

Read the original article on Chowhound.