Lasagna must be one of the most delectable dishes in the Italian repertoire. Lasagna, however, unlike most Italian dishes is not a simple preparation. Lasagna is a carefully planned assembly. While the individual ingredients of lasagna are rather straightforward, the assembly of those ingredients is very complex; and, depending it what you chose to include can be somewhat costly. In my childhood, lasagna was not something you saw at just any time. In my childhood, lasagna was a dish reserved for holidays. From some acquaintances of Italian extraction, lasagna was not known at any time of the year. In my family lasagna was always the first main course for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. It was a dense casserole of alternating layers of the lasagna noodles, ricotta cheese and what we called “gravy.”

Of course, since lasagna was served only on holidays, it was only a part of a many course holiday dinner. Such dinners usually began around 1pm and continued into the night. On holidays there was a complex arrangement of dishes. First came the fruit salad. This was a mixture of canned Dole fruit salad with the addition of select fresh fruits served in high glass cups chilled with ice. I don’t know the origin of this course. It was certainly not Italian. It may have been influenced by what restaurants were serving in the 1950’s. Continue reading “Lasagna: Then and Now”