Pasta primavera ("Spring Pasta" in Italian) is an American dish that consists of

pasta Pasta (, ; ) is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils, are som ...

in a and fresh

vegetable Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, ...

s, invented in the 1970s.

Origins

Shrimp_primavera_pasta_cooking_food_dinner

In 1975, New York restaurateur

Sirio Maccioni Sirio Maccioni (5 April 1932 – 20 April 2020) was an Italian restaurateur and author known for opening Le Cirque. Biography Maccioni got his start at Oscar's Delmonico, Delmonico's. Owner Oscar Tucci once stated, "Sirio and with Tony May w ...

flew to the Canadian summer home of Italian Baron Carlo Amato, Shangri-La Ranch on Robert's Island,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

. Maccioni and his two top chefs began experimenting with game and fish, but eventually the baron and his guests wanted something different. Maccioni then mixed butter, cream and cheese, with vegetables and pasta and brought the recipe back to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The fame of pasta primavera traces back to Maccioni's New York City restaurant

Le Cirque Le Cirque is a French restaurant that has had several locations throughout the New York City borough of Manhattan for more than forty years. It is currently closed, with its future status unknown. New York City history Le Cirque was establishe ...

, where it first appeared as an unlisted special before it was made famous through a 1977 article in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' by

Craig Claiborne Craig Claiborne (September 4, 1920 January 22, 2000) was an American restaurant critic, food journalist and book author. A long-time food editor and restaurant critic for ''The New York Times'', he was also the author of numerous cookbooks and ...

and

Pierre Franey Pierre Franey (January 13, 1921 – October 15, 1996) was a French chef, best known for his televised cooking shows and his "60 Minute Gourmet" column in ''The New York Times''. Early years Franey grew up in northern Burgundy, France. As ...

which included a recipe for the dish. The invention of the dish is contested; Le Cirque co-owner Sirio Maccioni claimed that his wife Egidiana threw it together from ingredients on hand during a trip to Nova Scotia;

Ed Giobbi Edward Gioachino Giobbi (born July 18, 1926, in Waterbury, Connecticut) is an American artist and cookbook author. Giobbi's paintings and other renderings mostly appear in collections in Italy but also the U.S. His works have been shown in solo ...

, an amateur cook himself, claims to have shown Maccioni and Jean Vergnes (then executive chef at Le Cirque) a similar dish which Vergnes then slightly modified, and chef Franco Brigandi claims to have invented it while the maitre at ''Il Gatto Pardo Ristorante'' in New York City and prepared it for

Bob Lape Bob Lape (born Robert Cable Lape; 1933 in Akron, Ohio) is an American broadcast journalist, writer, restaurant reviewer, and food critic. Career Lape worked as a reporter and news director at WCUE in Akron, Ohio, WICE in Providence, Rhode Is ...

on WABC television before his dish was requested to be cooked by other culinary practitioners. Maccioni states that Vergnes and his subsequent French chefs refused to allow pasta to be served at Le Cirque, so the many requests for the dish had to be satisfied with a pot set up in a hallway to cook pasta, and plates were finished in the dining room by wait staff away from the chefs' watchful eyes. The combination of lightly cooked vegetables and pasta, which Claiborne and Franey hailed as "by far, the most talked-about dish in Manhattan", is widely recognized as one of the signature developments of American cuisine in the 1970s.

References

External links

A recipe hosted on Food Network

External links

{{Cuisine of Italy Italian-American cuisine Pasta dishes Vegetable dishes Vegetarian cuisine Cuisine of New York City Italian-American culture in New York City

Origins

See also

References

External links

External links