Ravioli
type of pasta
Ravioli (Italian: [raviˈɔli]; sing.: raviolo, Italian: [raviˈɔlo]) are a type of stuffed pasta comprising a filling enveloped in thin pasta dough. Usually served in broth or with a sauce, they originated as a traditional food in Italian cuisine. Ravioli are commonly square, though other forms are also used, including circular and semi-circular (mezzelune).
Ravioli appear in the 14th-century cookbook The Forme of Cury under the name of rauioles.
Etymology
English and French borrowed the word ravioli from Italian in the 14th century. The ultimate origin of the word is uncertain. It is sometimes connected to the northern Italian word rava, 'turnip', supposing that the filling was made of turnips, but the earliest recipes, even Lenten ones, do not include turnips. Another theory connects it to a kind of cheese (related to modern Italian robiola), but that also appears unlikely.
History
Ravioli are mentioned in the personal letters of Francesco Datini, a merchant of Prato 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 and seasoned with "sweet and strong spices".
“Ravioli” enters the record as type of pasta. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ravioli, type and pasta can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ravioli” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.