July 29th: Lasagna Day

It's Lasagna Day - so here are 10 things you might not know about the tasty Italian dish:

1. A well-known Italian dish, but the word "Lasagne" is thought to come from the Greek language, a word for the type of pot it was cooked in. Some scholars believe it comes from the Greek word for a chamber pot.
2. The different spellings, Lasagne or Lasagna that you may see on a menu are actually the singular and plural forms of the word. "Lasagna" means one sheet of the pasta, whereas "Lasagne" means several.
3. A dish similar to lasagne was eaten in ancient Rome.
4. The first recipe for lasagne in an English cookbook appeared in the 14th century. The book was called The Forme of Cury and the dish was called "Loseyn". However, this recipe did not include Tomatoes, since they were not introduced in Europe until after 1492.
5. Traditionally, the first modern lasagne recipes originated in Naples. The first recipe appeared in a book called Liber de Coquina (the book of cookery).
6. The pasta in lasagne is traditionally made from semolina (durum wheat).
7. The dish is made by interleaving layers of pasta with layers of sauce, made with ragù, bechamel, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. The recipe can include ricotta or mozzarella Cheese, tomato sauce, various meats (e.g., ground beef, pork or chicken), miscellaneous vegetables (e.g., Spinach, zucchini, Mushrooms) and it can be flavoured with Wine, Garlic, Onion, and oregano. It is oven-baked.
8. In the Seinfeld episode, "The Butter Shave," Elaine gives the nickname "Vegetable Lasagna" to the passenger next to her on a plane.
9. Lasagna is the favourite food of the cartoon character Garfield.
10. "Lasagna" is also a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic - a parody of "La Bamba" by Ritchie Valens and Los Lobos. Originally, Yankovic intended to record the song in Italian but realised that only people who could understand Italian would get the jokes, so he recorded it in English with a bad Italian accent.

My Books

As well as this blog, I also write fiction and have published two novels (Death and Faxes and Glastonbury Swan) and a collection of short stories (Jigsaw). If you like ghost stories, crime stories, a bit of romance and anything slightly bizarre you might enjoy them. 

Further details on my books page