Mama Mia… Saturday (July 29) was National Lasagna Day!
While historians disagree about when this pasta dish first emerged, it’s assumed it was sometime after the 1600’s.
Tomatoes are a “New World” food, which means spaghetti sauce didn’t exist before then, and neither did lasagna. We feel bad for the poor souls that were born to soon to enjoy lasagna. Thank your lucky stars that you were born in a time when lasagna does exist and enjoy the Italian dish today.
And get this – it’s much easier than you think to make! Wanna try? Check these recipes out.
Some fun things to know about lasagna:
- Lasagna originated in Italy, in the region of Emilia-Romagna.
- Traditionally, the dough was prepared in Southern Italy with semolina and water and in the northern regions, where semolina was not available, with flour and eggs.
- Originally, in Italy, the word “lasagna” did not refer to a food (in fact, today, the food is still spelled “lasagne” as the plural form). The word “lasagna” referred to the pot in which the food was cooked. It is thought that the word “lasagna” for the pot is derived from the Greek word for “chamber pot.”
- The earliest lasagna recipes known are dated from the thirteenth century. At that time, tomatoes weren’t familiar to Europeans. As a result, they couldn’t have used them in the recipes. However, depending on the recipe, different cheeses are used.
- Did you know you can make lasagna in the dish washer. All you have to do is put the ingredients together in a dish (either boils noodles or use the no boil noodles), cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil, then use the heated dry and sanitize cycle on your dishwasher to cook the lasagna.
- The most well known bit of lasagna lore is probably that the cat, Garfield, from the comic strip, has lasagna as his favorite food.
- Weird Al recorded “Lasagna” as a parody of “La Bamba.” Check it out below.