Neapolitan ragù

Neapolitan ragù, known in Italian as ragù alla napoletana^[a] or ragù napoletano (in Naples simply ragù; Neapolitan: rraù),^[1] is a ragù associated with the city of Naples, Italy, 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.

Neapolitan ragù

Served with paccheri pasta
Alternative names	Ragù napoletano or ragù alla napoletana (Italian) Rraù (Neapolitan)
Type	Ragù
Place of origin	Italy
Region or state	Naples, Campania
Associated cuisine	Italian (Neapolitan)
Main ingredients	Meat cuts (beef and pork), onion-based soffritto, tomato paste or purée, wine, basil
Media: Neapolitan ragù

The people of Naples 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 such as 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 ragù bolognese. 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 minced, and is served with short, ridged pastas rather than long, flat ones.

Origin

Historical

Antonio Latini's recipe for a ragù (65), the first to appear in Naples. A translation is supplied in the footnotes:^[b]

As with all ragùs, Neapolitan ragù evolved from the French ragout, from which it also derives its name.^[3][4] Ragouts were first described in the early 17th century, and for their first two hundred years were understood as a class of sauces that could flavour otherwise plain servings of meat.^[3] For at least part of that period, they 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 [it] wrote of a ragù made from "egg yolks, mastic, lemon juice and veal kidney fat".^[5] 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.^[6][7]

In 1773, Neapolitan chef Vincenzo Corrado [it] in Il cuoco galante [it] 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.^[8] In 1790, Francesco Leonardi described a dish of maccaroni alla Napolitana in his book L'Apicio moderno. This dish resembled Corrado's, with the distinction that Leonardi's pasta was not encased in pastry, and the historian Luca Cesari describes the sauce as an "embryonic" Neapolitan ragù.^[9] This dish closely resembled versions of Genovese sauce then made in Naples, and the two were at times treated as interchangeable.^[10] 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", many of which were then held in high regard.^[6][9] One ragù recipe recommends serving the sauce with a baked pasta, the first recorded instance of a ragù from the ragout tradition and pasta being served together.^[9]

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 around the same time across editions of the 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.^[11][12][13] 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.^[14] 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.^[15] Preparations without tomato persisted in the Genovese sauce, drawing a clear distinction between the two for the first time.^[16]

Legendary

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 [it] 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 [it] 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.^[17]

Ingredients

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.^[18][19]

Which meat or combination thereof a cook uses is determined by preference and location. In the countryside around Naples, water buffalo are consumed where they are reared. In the province of 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.^[18] Cuts of meat favoured for ragù are those that take hours to tenderise; beef shoulder and shins and pork short ribs are typical.^[20][21] In Naples' poorer past, the choice of meat was informed by economy, and offcuts and sausages were common.^[14]

Over the second half of the 20th century, pork gained prominence in preparations, and a ragù made simply from beef fell out of fashion.^[22] 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.^[18] Over the same period, preparations of Neapolitan ragù became less fatty. Before World War II, some recipes had used olive oil, rendered lard, and unrendered lard all together in a single preparation, sometimes also adding butter. By the mid-1990s a lighter ragù had become popular and chefs cooked with little and sometimes no fat.^[18] Other common additions include pork sausages and cotica, pork skin softened over a long cooking process. In a ragù preparation, cotica is rolled tightly, enclosing garlic, raisins, parsley, and pine nuts, and added to the simmering sauce.^[18]

Tomato appears as paste and puree.^[20] Older preparations of the ragù used conserva, a deep red tomato paste, made by salting, drying and milling tomatoes,^[23] that were finally left to dry in the sun, but by the mid-1990s the ingredient had become hard to find in the city.^[24] Aromatics include onion, on occasion in soffritto as the dominant element. A distinct practice is observed in Benevento, where garlic is used, sometimes in conjunction with onion.^[18] Including both in a single dish has historically been uncommon in Campanian cooking, with the combination viewed as redundant, but modern preparations generally call for both.^[25] Other ingredients include red wine and basil.^[20][21] Several ingredients distinguish Neapolitan ragù from the much better known ragù bolognese,^[26] including the use of whole rather than minced meat,^[18] the infrequent appearance of celery and carrot,^[25] as well as the ubiquitous presence of tomato.^[27]

Preparation

Simmering in a pot

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.^[27][28] When it is ready, the meat is removed and the sauce is left to reduce and thicken.^[29][20] To add depth of flavour, a technique in Naples involves adding tomato sauce periodically, allowing the liquid to reduce between additions.^[20]

Neapolitan ragù is known for its long cooking time; longer than ragù bolognese. Stories told within the families of Naples describe ragù being cooked "all day" in the era before World War II,^[18][30] when ragù was cooked in pottery cookware over an unreliable coal fire, and required ongoing vigilance and intermittently stirring 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.^[18][29]

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.^[18] The sauce's temperature is captured in the onomatopoeic term peppiare, meaning to 'lightly simmer'.^[31] 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.^[32]

Families in Naples continue to make ragù, following recipes that they keep secret.^[22] 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.^[26][33] 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.^[22] 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".^[31][34]

Serving

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.^[35] In the first, the sauce is served over short, ridged pasta,^[36] sometimes topped with basil and Parmesan.^[28] At times, the meat makes its way into the dish here—sometimes as a sliver served atop,^[27] 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.^[37][38] If cotica has been added, it is cut into slivers and portioned out to diners.^[18] If the meat is not eaten, it may be preserved for the next day.^[27]

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.^[39][40][41] The use of short ridged pastas distinguishes the Neapolitan ragù from ragù bolognese, which generally uses the long, flat tagliatelle.^[36]

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.^[42] It is also sometimes included in the baked pasta dish timballo.^[18]

In North America

Spaghetti and meatballs is adapted from Neapolitan ragù.

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.^[43][44]

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.^[43]

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, large balls of minced meat were substituted for the cuts of meat present in Neapolitan ragù, 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.^[44]

See also

• Italy portal
• Food portal

• List of meat-based sauces
• Sausages in Italian cuisine

Notes

1. Italian pronunciation: [raˈɡu alla napoleˈtaːna].
2. "Dish called raù—veal flank filled with chopped veal meat, egg yolks, sour cherry pulp, cured/larded [spicy?] ham, bone marrow, truffle slices, 'mostaccioli powder' [i.e. mix of sweet spices used in mostaccioli], pine nuts, herbs, common spices, and other prized ingredients; cooked in a lidded casserole, well greased with butter or lard/suet, with meat sauce; once it is cooked, it will be served with previously sautéd sweetbreads, cauliflowerets and asparaguses, and seasoned according to taste."