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_ Neapolitan ragù _
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Introduction
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Neapolitan ragù ( in the Neapolitan language) is a ragù associated
with the city of Naples, Italy, made by braising meat over several
hours in tomato purée and sauce. When the meat is ready, it is set
aside 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 the remaining sauce.
Ragùs are typically rich, meaty sauces that are eaten across Italy.
The people of Naples hold their version in high regard, and several
writers from the area describe it as the "queen of sauces".
Throughout Italy, the dish is known under names including and .
Although it contains tomato and meat, it is perceived as
fundamentally a meat sauce, with the tomato a conduit for meat
flavours.
Neapolitan ragù evolved from the French that was introduced to
Italy in the late 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 . The two differ in several
respects: the Neapolitan ragù cooks for a longer time, includes
more tomatoes and rarely celery and carrot, uses whole pieces of
meat rather than minced, and is usually served with short, ridged
pastas rather than long, flat ones.
Historical
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Ragùs--rich sauces often made with meat--are eaten across Italy
with pasta. They evolved from the French , from which they also
derived their name. were first described in the early 17th
century, and for their first 200 years they were understood as a
class of sauces that could flavour otherwise plain servings of
meat. For at least some of that period, they were prepared in a
basic method of browning meat and vegetables in fat, braising them
in a broth, then thickening the dish with flour. In the second half
of the 17th century, spread across Europe, and by 1662 they had
arrived in northern Italy, when the chef wrote of a ragù made from
"egg yolks, mastic, lemon juice and veal kidney fat". Within 30
years, ragù had made it to Naples under the name . One recipe 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.
In 1773, the Neapolitan chef published , listing three ways ragù
was being eaten: with veal, sturgeon, and eggs. In , Corrado gave a
recipe for , a baked pasta dish derived from the French . This
recipe included the meat gravy (), representing an early example
of combining pasta and meat in a single dish. In 1790, Francesco
Leonardi described a dish of in his book . This dish resembled
Corrado's, but Leonardi's pasta was not encased in pastry; the
historian Luca Cesari describes the sauce as an "embryonic"
Neapolitan ragù. This dish closely resembled versions of Genovese
sauce then made in Naples, and the two were sometimes treated as
interchangeable. Leonardi also gave a 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. One recipe recommends serving the
sauce with a baked pasta, the first recorded instance of a ragù
from the tradition and pasta being served together.
Around 1807, a second edition of was published, and the recipe for
was updated to include tomatoes. Food historian Massimo Montanari
suggests the practice of adding tomatoes may have originated among
the general population, and over time proliferated through the
classes. Two further developments were offered around the same time
across editions of the cookbook () 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 rather than for the
meat sauce accompanying pasta. In the seventh edition, published in
1828, a recipe for pasta and ragù close to the modern version was
supplied, still made distinct by a practice of serving ragù over
grated cheese.
Despite the book's populist title, these were recipes adapted for
the aristocratic palate, and were unaffordable for many
Neapolitans. Ragù remained 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. 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. Compared to these new recipes, preparing
Neapolitan ragù was timely and costly, and the ragù became
increasingly associated with holidays and the Sunday lunch.
Versions with and without tomatoes continued to exist until the
20th century, when their inclusion became mandatory. Preparations
without tomato persisted in the Genovese sauce, drawing a clear
distinction between the two for the first time.
Legendary
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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 travelled throughout Naples,
praying for peace and mercy and imploring the people to reconcile
with their enemies. One day, they arrived at the where a cruel
lord lived. He was the only person in the city who 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 "Mercy
and peace". To quell her husband's rage, the lord's wife prepared a
dish of pasta, which through divine providence was covered with
blood. Moved greatly by this, the lord gave up his anger and
forgave his enemies. Seeing this, his wife again made the sauce,
and again, a red liquid appeared atop it. This time it had a
pleasing aroma; upon tasting and finding it delicious, the lord
named it after his son.
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 (), and the tomato
is understood as a medium to carry meat flavour.
The meat or combination thereof is determined by the cook's
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. Cuts of meat favoured for ragù are those that
take hours to tenderise; beef shoulder, beef shins, and pork short
ribs are typical. In Naples's poorer past, the choice of meat was
informed by price, and offcuts and sausages were common.
Over the second half of the 20th century, pork gained prominence in
preparations, and a ragù made simply from beef fell out of fashion.
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. Over the same period, preparations of
Neapolitan ragù became less fatty. Before World War II, some
recipes used olive oil, rendered lard, and unrendered lard in a
single preparation, sometimes with the addition of butter. By the
mid-1990s a lighter ragù became popular, and chefs cooked with
little and sometimes no fat. Other common additions include pork
sausages and , pork skin softened over a long cooking process. In a
ragù preparation, is rolled tightly, enclosing garlic, raisins,
parsley, and pine nuts, and added to the sauce as it cooks.
Tomato appears as purée and paste. Older preparations of the ragù
used , a deep red tomato paste, made by salting, drying and milling
tomatoes, which were left to dry in the sun. By the mid-1990s, the
ingredient had become hard to find in the city. In Naples, a
homemade tomato paste is believed to distinguish good ragù from
great, alongside using a local pecorino rather than another sheep's
milk cheese, and sourcing the wine from vineyards around Mount
Vesuvius. 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. The
inclusion of both in a single dish has been uncommon in Campanian
cooking, with the combination viewed as redundant; modern
preparations generally call for both. Other ingredients include red
wine, basil, and cinnamon.
Several ingredients distinguish Neapolitan ragù from the
better-known , including the use of whole rather than minced meat,
the infrequent appearance of celery and carrot, as well as the
prominent presence of tomato.
Preparation
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Neapolitan ragù is made by browning then slowly braising meat or
meats in tomato purée and paste, stirring periodically to prevent
burning on the bottom of the pot. When ready, the meat is removed
and the sauce is left to reduce and thicken.
Neapolitan ragù is known for its long cooking time, which is longer
than . Stories exchanged within the families of Naples describe
ragù being cooked "all day" in the era before World War II, as ragù
was cooked in pottery cookware over an unreliable coal fire and
required continual vigilance and intermittent stirring. For this,
the ragù acquired the name (), after 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.
By the mid-1990s, the lighter ragù had become popular. This was
cooked for less time, although it was commonly believed that the
dish had to be cooked for at least 2.5 hours to be considered ragù.
Around that time, it was held, the colour shifts and a dramatic
flavour transformation occurs. The low temperature at which the
sauce is held over this time is captured in the term , meaning .
is an onomatopoeia, referencing the sound of bubbles breaking at
the surface, and the change in timbre as the sauce thickens. In a
modern Italy where women work outside the home more than was
historically common, long cooking times have meant Neapolitan ragù
is made less frequently, and an industry mass-producing ragù sauce
by the jar has emerged.
As with ingredients, several beliefs exist in Naples for how the
best ragù is prepared. Specific cookware--wooden spoons and
flameproof terracotta pots--are held as essential. To add depth of
flavour, one technique involves adding tomato sauce in stages,
allowing the liquid to reduce between additions.
Several writers from Naples have described the ragù as the "queen
of sauces". Families in the area also hold their ragù in high
regard and continue to prepare it, following recipes that they keep
secret. 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. 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' () in a scene in which Sophia Loren's character visits a
butcher and argues with customers and staff. The play was an
adaptation of a 1947 poem, "'O rraù'", written by De Filippo in the
Neapolitan dialect, in which a narrator tells his wife that because
she has not made ragù as his mother had, she has only made "meat
with tomatoes".
Serving
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As with several dishes in Neapolitan cuisine, such as Genovese
sauce, , and stuffed squid, the Neapolitan ragù is served across
two courses in the Italian meal structure. In the first, the sauce
is served over short, ridged pasta, sometimes topped with basil and
parmesan. At times, the meat is included in the dish
here--sometimes as a sliver served atop, and with increasing
frequency interspersed throughout. The meat then follows as the
second course, either by itself or with vegetable sides, dressed
with some of the remaining sauce. If has been added, it is cut
into slivers and portioned out to diners. If the meat is not eaten,
it may be saved for the next day.
Common choices of pasta include macaroni, gnocchi, or ziti, though
location has a key deciding role: in Benevento the ragù is eaten
with , in the Alburni mountain range of Salerno with fusilli, and
in Naples, ziti is the archetypal first course for a Sunday lunch.
The use of short ridged pastas distinguishes the Neapolitan ragù
from , which generally uses the long, flat tagliatelle.
During Carnival, Neapolitan ragù covers the local , a baked pasta
dish containing mozzarella and ricotta, sausages and small fried
meatballs, as well as hard-boiled eggs. It is sometimes included in
the .
In North America
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In the late 19th century, Italians emigrated to America. There,
they found that meat was more affordable, allowing the poor to have
it at every Sunday dinner. It was often prepared as a meat sauce,
sometimes called "gravy". 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, stuffed with ham, breadcrumbs, cheese, and herbs in the
American version of the dish. By bringing family together, the
Sunday dinner served as an important ritual for Italian Americans,
even after meat consumption spread across the week as families grew
wealthier.
By the early 20th century, Neapolitan ragù was adapted into the
dish spaghetti and meatballs. 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 Sunday meals.
See also
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* List of meat-based sauces
* Sausages in Italian cuisine
* Ragù bolognese
* Ragù di salsiccia
External links
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*
[https://blog.giallozafferano.it/foodiamo/ricetta-ragu-napoletano/
Preparation of Neapolitan ragù]
License
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All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_ragù
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