Pasta Puttanesca

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A plate of home-made Puttanesca with olives, tomatoes, anchovies, capers, and garlic, served with rigatoni
A plate of home-made Puttanesca with olives, tomatoes, anchovies, capers, and garlic, served with rigatoni

Pasta Puttanesca (Italian Pasta alla Puttanesca) is an Italian pasta dish made with a sauce named sugo alla puttanesca. Puttanesca is an urban and a modern sauce, not dependent upon seasonal ingredients and reflecting the bounty of the market shop rather than the bounty of the garden.

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[edit] The name

The sauce is not part of traditional Italian cuisine: the earliest reference to pasta “alla puttanesca” in print cited by the Grande dizionario della lingua italiana is Raffaele La Capria’s 1961 novel Ferito a morte, 1961, and the professional association of pastamakers, Unione Industriali Pastai Italiani, agrees that the sauce became popular in the 1960s.[1].

The name originated in Naples[2] after the local prostitutes[3], Pasta alla Puttanesca meaning "Pasta the way a whore would make it". The reason why the dish gained such a name is debated, though the most obvious contrast— with alla casalinga, simple "home-style" tomato sauce which has been "tarted up", as the English would say— is ignored for livelier original legends. One possibility is that the name is a reference to the sauce's hot, spicy flavour and pungent smell. Another is that the dish was offered to prospective customers at a low price to entice them into a brothel[citation needed]. According to chef Jeff Smith of the Frugal Gourmet, its name came from the fact that it was a quick, cheap meal that prostitutes could prepare between customers.

A more thorough story about this dish comes from Diane Seed in her book, Top 100 Pasta Sauces (p. 20) ISBN 0-89815-232-1. She says:

“ My introduction to this famous pasta dish occurred when I overheard two elderly priests discussing the pros and cons of Spaghetti alla Puttanesca ("Whore's spaghetti") as they deliberated over the menu in a Neapolitan restaurant. Made of ingredients found in most Italian larders, this is also known as 'Spaghetti alla Buona Donna' - or 'Good Woman's Spaghetti' - which can be misleading if one is not familiar with the ironic insult 'figlio d'una buona donna' - son of a good woman.

To understand how this sauce came to get its name, one must consider the 1950s when brothels in Italy were state-owned. They were known as case chiuse or 'closed houses' because the shutters had to be kept permanently closed to avoid offending the sensibilities of neighbors or innocent passers-by. Conscientious Italian housewives usually shop at the local market every day to buy fresh food, but the 'civil servants' were only allowed one day per week for shopping, and their time was valuable. Their specialty became a sauce made quickly from odds and ends in the larder.		 ”
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[edit] Ingredients

The ingredients for sugo alla puttanesca tend to be very easy to find, and are typically Mediterranean. Extra-virgin olive oil (instead of butter, more commonly used in northern Italian cooking) is put in a frying pan. Then, finely chopped cloves of garlic (sometimes with onions) are added, followed by peperoncino (dried hot peppers) and anchovy fillets mashed with a fork. Anchovies are usually not sautéed for a long time, to avoid a strong "fishy" taste. Tomatoes are poured in, and when the sauce comes to the boiling point, chopped capers (best in salt, not in vinegar) and stoned black olives will be added. Then the sauce will be reduced over fierce heat. As a final touch, chopped parsley and fresh basil leaves are occasionally included.

Recipes may differ according to preferences; sugo alla puttanesca must be a little salty (from salted anchovies and olives), spicy (from hot red peppers) and quite fragrant (with large amounts of garlic). Traditionally, the sauce is served with spaghetti (spaghetti alla puttanesca), although it may also be used with other dry pasta types like bucatini, linguine and vermicelli. The sauce is mixed with cooked pasta and minced parsley is sprinkled over the dish on the plate.

[edit] In popular culture

Like many Italian foods, pasta puttanesca has gained some modern popularity as it has been featured on various cooking instruction programs on television, such as those hosted on the Food Network and Public Broadcasting Service in the United States. In fiction, the American television series Desperate Housewives also made reference to the dish in an episode from its first season. Edie Britt, a character widely known for her numerous romantic liaisons, brought a neighbor a dish of sausage puttanesca (though pork or other sausage is far from commonly included in the dish). It is also prominently featured in the first book of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

It is featured in Sex and the City as well; Charlotte chooses it for Miranda's baby shower.

It is also feature in the movie "Made" with Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn. It is referred to as "Bad Girls Pasta".

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Unione Industriali Pastai Italiani
  2. ^ The standard Italian spelling is puttana.
  3. ^ Food Network

[edit] External links