Ravioli (plural; singular: raviolo) are a traditional type of Italian filled pasta. It is composed of a filling sealed between two layers of thin egg pasta dough and they are served either in broth or with a pasta sauce. The word ''ravioli'' is reminiscent of the Italian verb ''riavvolgere'' ("to wrap"), though the two words are not etymologically connected. The word may also be a diminutive of Italian dialectal ''rava'', or turnip.

History

The earliest mention of ravioli appear in the writings of Francesco di Marco, a merchant of Venice in the 14th century. In Venice, the mid-14th century manuscript ''Libro per cuoco'' offers ravioli of green herbs blanched and minced, mixed with beaten egg and fresh cheese, simmered in broth, a recipe that would be familiar today save for its medieval powdering of "sweet and strong spices". In Tuscany, some of the earliest mentions of the dish come from the personal letters of Francesco di Marco Datini, a merchant of Prato in the 14th century. In Rome, ravioli were already well-known when Bartolomeo Scappi served them with boiled chicken to the papal conclave of 1549. Ravioli were already known in 14th century England, appearing in the Anglo-Norman vellum manuscript Forme of Cury under the name of ''rauioles''. Sicilian ravioli and Malta's ''ravjul'' may thus be older than North Italian ones. Maltese ''ravjul'' are stuffed with ''rikotta'', the locally produced sheep's-milk ricotta, or with ''gbejna'', the traditional fresh sheep's-milk cheese.

Overview

Today, ravioli are made in worldwide industrial lines supplied by Italian companies such as Arienti & Cattaneo, Ima, Ostoni, and Zamboni. "Fresh" packed ravioli usually have seven weeks of shelf life. Canned ravioli was pioneered by Chef Boyardee. This type of ravioli is filled with either beef or processed cheese and served in a tomato, tomato-meat, or tomato-cheese sauce. Canned ravioli has more in common with other canned pastas than with traditional ravioli dishes. Its roots are in traditional American "red sauce" Italian-American restaurants opened by Italian immigrants in New York and other cities. Toasted ravioli are ravioli that have been breaded and deep fried, and are a popular appetizer or snack food.

In other cultures

In India, a popular dish called Gujiya is similar to ravioli however its prepared sweet, with a filing of dry fruits, sugar and a mixture of sweet spices, then deep fried in vegetable oil. The dish is a popular food prepared during the Holi festival, mainly in the northern, northwestern and central parts of India.

Similar dishes in other cultures include the Chinese jiaozi or wonton; in fact, ravioli and tortellini are sometimes collectively referred to as "Italian jiaozi" (意大利饺子) or "Italian wonton" (意大利馄饨). A similar dish called shishbarak contains pasta filled with minced beef meat and cooked in hot yogurt.

See also

References

Notes

Sources

Adamson, Melitta Weiss; editor (2002) ''Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe: A Book of Essays'' ISBN 0-415-92994-6

External links

How to make ravioli from scratch (video)

Category:Pasta Category:Dumplings Category:Italian loanwords Category:Italian cuisine

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Giorgio Locatelli is an Italian chef working in the United Kingdom.

Biography

Locatelli was brought up in Corgeno on the banks of Lake Maggiore, Italy. His uncle ran a restaurant, giving him an appreciation and understanding of food from an early age. After working for a short spell in local restaurants in North Italy and Switzerland, Locatelli came to England in 1986 to join the kitchens of Anton Edelmann at The Savoy. In 1990, Locatelli moved to Paris and worked at Restaurant Laurent and La Tour D’Argent. On his return to London a couple of years later, Locatelli became head chef at Olivo, Eccleston Street, before opening Zafferano in February 1995.

Locatelli cooking at Zafferano quickly became the toast of London. He won ‘Best Italian Restaurant’ at the London Carlton Restaurant Awards for two consecutive years and his first Michelin star in 1999. His cooking aims to highlight the natural flavors of quality produce, much of which he imports directly from Italy. He opened his second restaurant, Spighetta, on Blandford Street, in July 1997 and its sister restaurant Spiga, on Wardour Street, in March 2009.

Locatelli is considered by many to be one of the best Italian chefs in the UK. His Locanda Locatelli restaurant serves traditional Italian dishes. Locanda Locatelli has won a Michelin star in 2003 which has since been retained.

Locatelli has two TV series: Pure Italian, 2002, aired on the UK Food channel and ‘Tony and Giorgio’, filmed with entrepreneur Tony Allan, shown on BBC2. It was accompanied by a tie- in book. His own cookery book, Made in Italy, was published in September 2006. Made in Italy has received the Best Food Book award at the Glenfiddich Food and Drink Awards 2007. In 2002, on the 14th of February, Giorgio and his wife Plaxy, opened his first independent restaurant, Locanda Locatelli, in Seymour Street. The restaurant has been awarded a Michelin star in 2003, which has been retained in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Locatelli lives with his wife Plaxy and their 2 children, Margherita and Jack, in Camden, London.

External links

Homepage for the Locanda Locatelli restaurant

Homepage for the Refettorio restaurant

Articles by Giorgio on his publisher's blog, 5th Estate

References

Category:1963 births Category:Living people Category:Italian chefs

Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
name	Lidia Matticchio Bastianich
birth date	February 21, 1947
birth place	Istria (present-day Pula, Istria County, present-day Croatia)
style	Italian
ratings
restaurants	Felidia, Becco, Lidia's Pittsburgh, Lidia's Kansas City, Del Posto, Esca
television	''Lidia's Italy'', ''Lidia's Family Table'', ''Lidia's Italian–American Kitchen''
website	http://www.lidiasitaly.com/}}

Lidia Matticchio Bastianich (born Lidia Motika on February 21, 1947 in Pula, Istria County, present-day Croatia) is an American chef, author, and restaurateur.

Specializing in Italian cuisine, she has been a regular contributor to public television cooking show lineups since 1998. In 2007, she launched her third TV series, ''Lidia's Italy''. She also owns several Italian restaurants in the U.S. in partnership with her daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali and her son, Joe Bastianich: including Felidia (founded with her ex-husband, Felice), Del Posto, Esca, and Becco in Manhattan; Lidia's Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Lidia's Kansas City in Kansas City, Missouri.

Early life

Lidia Matticchio (''née'' Motika) Bastianich was born on February 21, 1947, in the town of Pula, Istria, then newly ceded to Yugoslavia, now part of Croatia. Living nine years under Tito's Communist regime, her father, Vittorio, in 1956 sent his wife and their two children to visit relatives in Trieste, Italy, while he remained in Istria to comply with the government's mandate that one member of a family remain in Yugoslavia to ensure that the rest would return. Hours later, Vittorio himself left Yugoslavia under cover of darkness and crossed the border into Italy.

The Motika family reunited in Trieste, Italy, joining other families who had claimed political asylum from Communist Yugoslavia starting in 1947, many of whom remained in refugee camps throughout Italy for years. For the Motika family, the camp was one that had been an abandoned rice factory in Trieste that had been converted to a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and partially destroyed towards the end of the war, the Risiera di San Sabba. According to Lidia in a PBS documentary, although a wealthy Triestian family hired Lidia's mother as a cook–housekeeper and her father as a limousine driver, they remained residents of the refugee camp. Two years later, their displaced persons application was granted to emigrate to the U.S. In 1958, unlike the earlier groups of World War II refugees whose journeyed to their adoptive homelands by "liberty ships" that took at least seven days arrive at their destination in North and South America, the Motika family had the good fortune to reach New York City by airplane.

Bastianich gives credit to the family's new roots in America to their sponsor, Catholic Charities:

After a few weeks, the family moved to North Bergen, New Jersey, near the Chevrolet factory where Lidia's father began working as a mechanic. Later, they moved to Astoria, Queens, where they had family friends and relatives living in a large enclave of fellow Istrian immigrants. Lidia started working part time when she was 14 (the legal age for a work permit), during which time she briefly worked at the Astoria bakery owned by Christopher Walken's father. After graduating from high school, she began to work full-time in local Italian restaurants. Meanwhile, at her sweet sixteen birthday party, she was introduced to her future husband, Felice "Felix" Bastianich, a fellow Istrian immigrant and restaurant worker from Labin (Albona), Istria. The couple married in 1966 and gave birth to their son, Joseph, in 1968.

Career

From Queens to Manhattan (1971–1981)

In 1971, the Bastianich couple opened their first restaurant, the tiny ''Buonavia'', meaning "good road", in the Forest Hills section of Queens, with Lidia as its hostess. They created their restaurant's menu by copying recipes from the most popular and successful Italian restaurants of the day, and they hired the best Italian-American chef that they could find. After a brief break to deliver her second child, Tanya, in 1972, Lidia began training as the assistant chef at ''Buonavia'', gradually learning enough to cook popular Italian dishes on her own, after which the couple began adding traditional Istrian dishes to their menu.

The success of ''Buonavia'' led to the opening of a second restaurant in Queens, ''Villa Secondo''. It was here that Lidia both gained the attention of local food critics and started to give live cooking demonstrations, a prelude to her future career as a TV cooking show hostess.

In 1981, Lidia's father passed away, and so the family sold their two Queens restaurants and purchased a small Manhattan brownstone containing a pre-existing restaurant on the East Side of Manhattan near the 59th Street Bridge to Queens, which they converted into what would eventually become their flagship restaurant, ''Felidia'' (a contraction of "Felice" and "Lidia"). After liquidating nearly every asset they had to cover $750,000 worth of renovations, Felidia finally opened to near-universal acclaim from their loyal following of food critics, including ''The New York Times'' which gave them three stars.

Expansion (1993–2011)

Although Lidia and Felice sent her two children to college and did not expect either of them to go into the restaurant business, her son Joseph, who had frequently did odd jobs for parents at Felidia as a child, gave up his newly launched career as a Wall Street bond trader and in 1993 convinced his parents to partner with him to open ''Becco'' (Italian for "peck, nibble, savor") in the Theater District in Manhattan. Like ''Felidia'', ''Becco'', it was an immediate success and led to the family's opening of additional restaurants outside New York City, starting with ''Lidia's Kansas City'' in 1997, the family's first restaurant outside of New York.

In 1993, Julia Child invited Lidia to tape an episode of her PBS series ''Julia Child: Cooking With Master Chefs'', which featured acclaimed chefs from around the U.S., preparing dishes in their own home kitchens. The guest appearance gave Lidia confidence and determination to expand the Bastianich family's own commercial interests. After many disagreements about the direction their entrepeneurial and personal lives had taken — most notably, the pace of the expansion and character of their business — Lidia and Felice divorced in 1997. Lidia continued expanding her business empire while Felice remarried and transferred his shares in the business to their two children. He passed away on December 12, 2010.

By the late 1990s, Lidia's restaurants had evolved into a true family-owned and operated enterprise: Erminia Motika, her mother, maintained the large garden behind the family home, from which her daughter Lidia chose the ingredients to use in recipe development; son Joe was the chief sommelier of the restaurant group, in addition to branching out into his own restaurant line with friend and famed Italian chef Mario Batali; daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali used her Ph.D in Italian art history as the backdrop for a travel-agency partnership with her mother called Lidia's ''Esperienze Italiane'', where Tanya and her friend Shelly Burgess Nicotra (the wife of Felidia's Executive Chef Fortunato Nicotra since 1996) conducted tours throughout Italy to view the historic architecture and sample genuine Italian cuisine; Tanya's husband, attorney Corrado Manuali, became the restaurant group's chief legal counsel.

The James Beard Foundation Award named Lidia Bastianich the Best Chef: New York City for 1999. In 2000, Ms. Bastianich participated as a celebrity judge on MasterChef USA, an adaptation of the BBC MasterChef (UK TV series). Her son, Joseph Bastianich, would later go on to star as a celebrity judge on the Gordon Ramsay version of MasterChef.

The family's business empire includes vineyards in Italy, olive groves in Istria, and a host of commercial food products and new business ventures revolving around the culinary arts. Lidia is partner with her daughter, Tanya Bastianich Manuali, in commercial housewares, Lidia's Kitchen, while as C.E.O. of Nonna Foods, her son-in-law, Corrado Manuali, is expanding the brand to include food.

In 2010, Lidia and her son partnered with Oscar Farinetti and Mario Batali to open a 50,000 square foot food emporium in Manhattan that is devoted to the food and culinary traditions of Italy. Called Eataly, its motto is "We sell what we cook, and we cook what we sell".

Television (2001–present)

In 1998, PBS offered Lidia her own TV series which became ''Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen''. It established her as a fixture in the network's line-up of cooking-shows. Since then she has hosted two additional television series, ''Lidia's Family Table'' and ''Lidia's Italy'', the latter of which was launched in April 2007. Lidia ends each episode of her show with an invitation to join her and her family for a meal, ''Tutti a tavola a mangiare!'' (Italian for "Everyone to the table to eat"). She also appeared on an episode of the 2006 PBS series Chef's Story.

For the 2010 holiday season, Lidia's new TV production company, Tavola Productions, created an animated holiday children's special for Public Television "Lidia's Christmas Kitchen: Nonna Tell Me a Story" to go along with the book by the same title that was written by Lidia.

Lidia has also been a featured chef on Great Chefs Television series and has been a guest judge on Top Chef. In 2011, Lidia feature as a guest judge on the second season the american version of ''MasterChef''

Lidia has authored several cookbooks to accompany her television series:

''La Cucina di Lidia''

''Lidia's Family Table''

''Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen''

''Lidia's Italian Table''

''Lidia's Italy''

''Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy''

Personal life

Lidia resides in Queens, New York, with her widowed mother, Erminia Motika. Lidia's own kitchen has served as the stage set for all three of her TV series, and the garden that Erminia maintains provides many of the ingredients featured in the shows. Erminia, who answers to "grandma", frequently serves as a sous-chef in various episodes of Lidia's TV series.

Joe Bastianich occasionally appears in Lidia's series to offer wine expertise. He, his wife Deanna, and their three children live in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Tanya Bastianich Manuali, with her husband Corrado Manuali and their two children, live just a few blocks away from Lidia. Tanya serves as the main on-camera cultural expert for all the segments of Lidia's PBS series ''Lidia's Italy'' that are filmed in Italy.

All four generations of the family have appeared at one time or another as participants in Lidia's TV shows; ''Lidia's Family Table'' where Lidia has given simple pasta making lessons to her grandchildren, and episodes of ''Lidia's Italy'' that often feature the adult Bastianich family members touring the various areas of Italy that relate to their personal interests and family-owned business enterprises.

In an interview by American Public Television, Lidia shared her opinion on how important it is for her to pass family traditions to her family:

References

External links

''Lidia's Italy'' Lidia Bastianich's official Web site.

''Celebrity Judges'' 2000 MasterChef USA official web site

Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:American television chefs Category:Istrian Italian people Category:Italian people of Croatian descent Category:American people of Italian descent Category:Italian emigrants to the United States Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Hudson County, New Jersey Category:People from Pula Category:People from Queens Category:American restaurateurs Category:American people of Croatian descent

it:Lidia Bastianich