Pasta Primavera

WHO COOKED THAT UP?

...J.J. Schnebel wonders

Pasta primavera? Look in an American cookbook printed before the mid-1970's and most likely you won't find a word about pasta primavera. But seek after that date and you may find it included not only in your cookbook but also on the menu of your local Italian restaurant. Does that mean this dish is only a few decades old? Yes, of course and -- not really.

The word "primavera" means "spring" in Italian and whenever spring comes around good cooks, in Italy and elsewhere, look for fresh produce to place on the table. Consequently, Italian cooks have been adding spring vegetables to their pasta dishes for centuries. Consult an Italian cookbook and you can probably find a recipe for "lasagne primavera" that has been used for generations. Therefore, we are not surprised to hear someone say that "pasta primavera is nothing new." However, the relatively recent popularity in America for the dish has become legendary. In fact, it has inspired a clever poster from another website, parodying a famous Italian painting depicting an Allegory of Spring. Click on the poster to the right to see 22 varieties of pasta surrounding the takeoff on a pose in Botticelli's classic painting. Click on the classic pose to the left to view the entire original painting which is at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

The legend surrounding the creation of the Italian-American pasta dish concerns a meeting held in May of 1975 when a group of chefs and other gourmets were traveling from the U.S. to Canada. Someone suggested, "Let's have some pasta." The preparation then fell to one of the company, Sirio Maccioni, a prominent New York restaurateur born in Italy. Seeking what was available, he prepared a dish using spaghetti, fresh vegetables, frozen peas and cream. When he was asked, "What do you call this pasta?" Maccioni responded, "spaghetti primavera," a reference to the fact that it consisted of springtime ingredients with a variation of a classic Tuscan recipe for cream sauce he had known most of his life.

Maccioni thought no more of it, but a week later Craig Claiborne, the New York Times food critic who had been among the company traveling to Canada, reportedly wrote in his column that it was "the best pasta discovery in twenty years." People flocked to Maccioni's restaurant Le Cirque only to find it was not on the menu. Why not? Well, the French chef at Le Cirque had not created it. However, New York foodies wanted to try the dish Craig Claiborne raved about, and to oblige his customers, Maccioni decreed it could be ordered "off the menu."

Over the years the recipe has been much varied by many chefs and home cooks, but the nearest I could find to the original comes from the Food and Wine magazine's first issue, and it goes like this:

SPAGHETTI PRIMAVERA
(6 servings)

1/3 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup minced basil
1 teaspoon finely minced garlic
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 cups broccoli florets, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 pound snow peas, trimmed and halved crosswise
2 small zucchini, quartered lengthwise and sliced 1/4 inch thick
6 asparagus stalks, peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 pound imported spaghetti
1/2 pound mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 cup thawed frozen baby peas
1/4 cup chicken stock or canned low-sodium broth
1 to 1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2/3 cup heavy cream
6 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

1. Preheat the oven to 300°. Spread the pine nuts in a pie plate and toast for about 12 minutes, or until golden.

2. In a small skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Add the tomatoes, 1/4 cup of the parsley, the basil and 1/2 teaspoon of the garlic and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until the tomatoes soften, 2 or 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Bring a stockpot of water to a boil. Add the broccoli, snow peas, zucchini and asparagus, bring back to a boil and blanch for 30 seconds. Using a slotted spoon, quickly transfer the vegetables to a colander. Rinse under cold running water to stop the cooking. Drain and pat dry.

4. Return the water to a boil and add salt. Add the spaghetti and boil until al dente, about 11 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat the remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil. Add the mushrooms and the remaining 1 tablespoon of parsley and 1/2 teaspoon of garlic. Cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are lightly browned. Add the blanched vegetables and the baby peas and toss over high heat until most of liquid has evaporated and the vegetables are just tender.

6. Reheat the tomato sauce. Drain the spaghetti and return it to the stockpot. Add the chicken stock, Parmesan, cream and butter and stir over low heat until the cheese melts. Add the vegetables, season with salt and pepper and toss thoroughly. Transfer the spaghetti to 6 plates, top with the tomato sauce and serve.

If you wish to vary the recipe, you can use a different sort of pasta (angel hair, bow tie, the ubiquitous fettucini or any one of the varieties on the poster above). You can also include some spring vegetables from your own locality, such as fiddlehead ferns or morel mushrooms. You can even search the web and find the many ways that Pasta Primavera has entered our vocabulary and menus.

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