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Neapolitan ragù
Variety of ragù From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Neapolitan ragù (Neapolitan: rraù; Italian: ragù napoletano or ragù alla napoletana [raˈɡu alla napoleˈtaːna])[1] is a ragù associated with the city of Naples, made by browning then braising meat over several hours in tomato purée. When the meat is ready, it is removed and the sauce is left to continue cooking and thickening. In the Italian meal structure, Neapolitan ragù is served in two stages: first as sauce served over pasta, and then as meat eaten alone or with vegetables, lightly dressed with remaining sauce.
Neapolitans revere their local ragù, and several writers from the area describe it as the "queen of sauces".[2] Although it contains elements of tomato and meat, it is fundamentally perceived to be a meat sauce, with the tomato understood as a conduit for carrying meat flavours.[1]
Neapolitan ragù evolved from the French ragout, introduced to Italy in the second half of the 17th century. Over the following 150 years, ingredients foreign to the modern ragù including asparagus and truffle were dropped, and tomatoes and pasta were added. In the 19th century, emigrants brought the dish to America, where it was developed into the Italian-American gravy and the dish spaghetti and meatballs.
The dish is far less well-known than the ragù of Bologna. The two differ in several respects: the Neapolitan ragù cooks for a longer time, always includes tomatoes and rarely celery and carrot, uses whole pieces of meat rather than ground, and is served with short, ridged pastas rather than long, flat ones.
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Origin
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Fact
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As with all ragùs, Neapolitan ragù evolved from the French ragout, which was first described in the early 17th century. For their first two hundred years, ragouts were understood as a class of sauces that could flavour otherwise plain servings of meat,[3] and for at least part of that period were prepared in a basic method of browning meat and vegetables in fat, braising them in a broth, and finally thickening the dish with flour. In the second half of the 17th century, ragouts spread across Europe, and by 1662 they had made it to northern Italy, when the chef Bartolomeo Stefani wrote of a ragù made from "egg yolks, mastic, lemon juice and veal kidney fat".[4] Within 30 years, ragù had arrived in Naples under the name raù. One recipe for this was described by the steward Antonio Latini, comprising a cut of veal that was stuffed, baked, and served with a separately cooked sauce. It featured ingredients foreign to the modern ragù, including asparagus, black cherries, sweetbreads, and truffle.[5][6]
In 1773, Neapolitan chef Vincenzo Corrado in Il cuoco galante listed three ways ragù was being eaten: with veal, sturgeon, and eggs. Elsewhere in Il cuoco galante, Corrado gave a recipe for timballo, a baked pasta dish derived from the French timbale. Corrado's recipe included the meat gravy sugo di carne ('meat sauce'), representing an early example of combining pasta and meat in a single dish.[7] Seventeen years after Il cuoco galante, Francesco Leonardi described a dish of maccaroni alla Napolitana in his book L'Apicio moderno. Leonardi's dish resembled Corrado's, with the distinction that Leonardi's pasta was not encased in pastry. Leonardi also gave a very broad treatment of ragùs, providing 73 recipes using ingredients such as truffles, champagne, herbs, and butter, as well as "chicken livers, combs and testicles, unlaid eggs, prawn tails [and] artichoke bottoms". One ragù recipe recommends serving it with a baked pasta, the first time a ragù from the ragout tradition and pasta had been recorded together.[8]
Around 1807, a second edition of L'Apicio moderno was published, and the recipe for Maccheroni alla Napolitana was updated to include tomatoes. Two further developments were offered across editions of the contemporary cookbook La cucina casareccia, authored by an "M. F." The first was seen in the fourth edition, published in 1804, which showed the first recorded use of the term "ragù" rather than sugo di carne for the meat sauce accompanying pasta. Later in the seventh edition published in 1828, a recipe for pasta and ragù close to the modern version is supplied, still made distinct by a practice of serving ragù over grated cheese.[9][10][11] Ragù at this time was still a rare meal for most of the populace—meat was expensive for the poor of southern Italy, who could afford it only a few times a year, most often around holidays.[12] In the 19th and 20th centuries, cookbooks began to target women in the home, and recipes were adapted to suit cooks who could spend less time cooking, and with this ragù became associated with holidays and Sunday lunch. Versions with and without tomatoes continued to exist until the 20th century, when inclusion became mandatory.[13]
Legend
A legendary account of the dish's origin is told in Naples. The story recounts that at the end of the 14th century, members of a religious association known as the Compagnia dei Bianchi della Giustizia travelled throughout Naples, praying for peace and mercy and imploring the people to reconcile with their enemies. At this they were successful, until they came to the Palazzo Filippo d'Angiò where a cruel lord lived. He refused to let go of his anger and grudges, even when his son Raù at three months old miraculously crossed his arms and repeatedly exclaimed the phrase "Mercy and peace". In an effort to quell her husband's rage, the lord's wife prepared a dish of pasta. Through divine providence, the pasta was covered with blood, which moved the lord greatly, and he forgave his enemies. Seeing this, his wife again made the sauce, and again, a red liquid appeared atop it. This time, however, it had a pleasing aroma, and upon tasting and finding it delicious, the lord named it after his son.[14]
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Ingredients
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Despite containing elements of both meat and tomato, in Naples the local ragù is viewed primarily as a meat sauce (sugo di carne), and the tomato is understood as a medium to carry meat flavour.[15][16]
Which meat or combination thereof a cook uses is determined by preference and location. On the plains of Campania, water buffalo are consumed where they are reared. In Benevento, at least part of the meat is lamb, and in the Cilento mountains of Salerno, goat is used, both the young, and the castrated and old.[15] Cuts of meat favoured for ragù are those that take hours to tenderise; beef shoulder and shins and pork short ribs are typical.[17][18] In Naples' poorer past, the choice of meat was informed by economy, and meat offcuts and sausages were common.[12]
Over the second half of the 20th century, pork gained prominence in preparations, and a ragù made simply from cuts of beef fell out of fashion.[19] By the 1990s, a ragù made of braciola, beef stuffed with cheese and other fillings, had become a popular preparation after the price of the ingredient fell.[15] Over the same period, preparations of Neapolitan ragù became less fatty. Before World War II, some recipes had used olive oil and rendered and unrendered lard together in one preparation, sometimes also with the addition of butter. By the mid-1990s, a lighter ragù had become popular. Chefs cooked with less and sometimes no fat.[15] Cotica, pork skin softened over a long cooking process, is a common addition. In a ragù preparation, it is rolled tightly, enclosing garlic, raisins, parsley, and pine nuts, and added to the simmering sauce. Pork sausages are also often included.[15]
Tomato appears as paste and puree.[17] Older preparations of the ragù used conserva, a deep red tomato paste, made by salting, drying and milling tomatoes,[20] before leaving them to dry in the sun, but by the mid-1990s this had become hard to find in the city.[21] A soffritto emphasising onion is included, except in Benevento, where garlic, sometimes in conjunction with onion is used.[15] Including both in a single dish is uncommon in Campanian cooking, where doing so is considered redundant.[22] Other ingredients include red wine and basil.[17][18] Several of its ingredients distinguish it from the much better known ragù bolognese,[23] including the use of whole rather than ground meat,[15] the infrequent appearance of celery and carrot,[22] as well as the ubiquitous presence of tomato.[24]
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Preparation
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Neapolitan ragù is made by browning then slowly braising meat or meats in tomato puree, stirring periodically to prevent burning on the bottom of the pot.[24][25] When it is ready, the meat is removed and the sauce is left to reduce and thicken.[26][17] To add depth of flavour, a technique in Naples involves adding tomato sauce periodically, allowing the liquid to reduce between additions.[17]
Neapolitan ragù is known for taking a long time to cook, longer than ragù bolognese, and stories told within families of Naples describe ragù being cooked "all day" in the era before World War II.[15][27] In those days, ragù was cooked in pottery cookware over an unreliable coal fire, which required ongoing vigilance in addition to the need to intermittently stir the sauce to prevent burning. For this, the ragù acquired the name "sugo della guardaporta", 'sauce of the door-keeper', the only group popularly said to have the time needed to keep watch. Despite the dish being prepared for larger families in large pots with correspondingly long cooking times, descriptions of cooking taking entire days are probably fanciful.[15][26]
By the mid-1990s, the lighter ragù had become popular. This was cooked for less time, although it was commonly believed that the sauce had to cook for at least 2.5 hours to be considered ragù. Around that time, it was held that the colour shifts and a dramatic flavour transformation occurs.[15] The sauce's temperature is captured in the onomatopoeic term peppiare, meaning to 'lightly simmer'.[28] In a modern Italy where women work outside the home more than historically, long cooking times have reduced the frequency with which Neapolitan ragù is made, and an industry mass-producing ragù sauce by the jar has emerged.[29]
Families in Naples continue to make ragù, following recipes that they keep secret.[19] The dish is typically eaten at Sunday lunch, with cooks beginning cooking early in the morning. The distinctive fragrance is associated with Sundays and promotes "a relaxed and family-oriented mood" according to the researchers Patrícia Branco and Richard Mohr.[23][30] At times, emotive disagreements take place on- and offline over what recipe should be considered the most traditional. These disputes were dramatised in the 1990 film adaptation of Eduardo De Filippo's 1959 play Saturday, Sunday and Monday (Sabato, domenica e lunedì) in a scene in which Sophia Loren's character visits a butcher and argues with customers and staff.[19] The play was itself an adaptation of a 1947 poem "‘O rraù" De Filippo had written in the Neapolitan dialect, where a narrator tells his wife that her failure to make ragù as his mother did means she has only made "meat with tomatoes".[28][31]
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Serving
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As with several dishes in Neapolitan cuisine such as Genovese sauce, ragù di salsiccia, and stuffed squid, the Neapolitan ragù is served across two courses in the Italian meal structure.[32] In the first, the sauce is served over short, ridged pasta,[33] sometimes topped with basil and Parmesan.[25] At times, the meat makes its way into the dish here—sometimes as a sliver served atop,[24] and with increasing frequency some is interspersed throughout.[3] The meat then follows as the second course, either by itself or with vegetables, dressed with some of the remaining sauce.[34][35] If cotica has been added, it is cut into slivers and portioned out to diners.[15] If the meat is not eaten, it may be preserved for the next day.[24]
Common choices of pasta include macaroni, gnocchi, or ziti, though location has a key deciding role: in Benevento the ragù is eaten with cavatelli, in the Alburni mountain range of Salerno with fusilli, and in Naples, ziti is the archetypal first course for a Sunday lunch.[36][37][38] The use of short ridged pastas distinguishes the Neapolitan ragù from ragù bolognese, which generally uses the long, flat tagliatelle.[33]
During Carnival, Neapolitan ragù covers the local lasagne di Carnevale, a baked pasta dish containing mozzarella and ricotta, sausages and small fried meatballs, as well as hard-boiled eggs.[39] It is also sometimes included in the baked pasta dish timballo.[15]
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In North America
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As Italians emigrated to America in the late 19th century, adaptations of Neapolitan ragù continued to be eaten as Sunday dinner, and the dish of spaghetti and meatballs was derived.[40][41]
Arriving in America, Italian immigrants found meat much more affordable, allowing the poor to have it at every Sunday dinner. It was often prepared as a meat sauce, sometimes called "gravy" owing to a mistranslation of ragù. Most of the time, this meat sauce was an adaptation of Neapolitan ragù, and many families maintained the practice of serving ragù over two courses. The amount and type of meat used varied as income permitted, but beef, pork, salt pork, sausages, and veal were common. Braciola was another frequent inclusion; in the American version stuffed with ham, breadcrumbs, cheese, and herbs. With the gathering of family, the Sunday dinner was an important ritual for Italian Americans, even after meat consumption spread across the week as families grew wealthier.[40]
By the early 20th century, Neapolitan ragù had been adapted into the dish spaghetti and meatballs, seen in recipes published in newspapers across America. In this new dish, the cuts of meat present in Neapolitan ragù were substituted for large balls of ground meat, which were served atop a pile of spaghetti. These concepts—serving meatballs with spaghetti, meatballs as large as those in America, and serving meat with pasta as a first course—were foreign to Italian cooking. As spaghetti and meatballs gained popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, driven by restaurant economics and the Great Depression, the division between a first course of pasta served with sauce and a second course of dressed meat became less observed. The same was seen in homes, although some families retained the practice in their Sunday meals.[41]
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