"TOliver" > ha scritto nel messaggio

>
> Most lasagna - except in American resaurants - does not come with meat
> sauce, and Italian traditionalists (and lasagna seems - at least to
> travelers not able to dine in homes - far more popular in the US than in
> Italy) are largely unfamiliar with "meaty" lasagna....

Um, this may be true in some parts of Italy, but not all. In Emilia Romagan
and Tuscany, for example, the standard winter lasagna is made with a meat
sauce made with ground beef (sugo alla Bolognese), bechamel sauce, and
grated cheese. It's a Sunday and special occasion dish, which is why one
doesn't encounter it that often in Italian (in Italy) homes (you've got to
remember that until after WWII much of the Italian population was too poor
to eat meat of any kind more than a couple of times a week, and some dishes,
for example Neapolitan Lasagne di Carnevale, which are very rich, required
weeks of saving).

If you set a lasagna made with a red sauce in front of my Florentine
father-in-law he might eat it, but he also might not. If the lasagna laso
had ricotta, or meatballs (or both) he definitely wouldn't, because he's
traditional in his prefarences and neither are part of the Tuscan tradition
when it comes to lasagna. Both are more southern. Nobody (well, hardly
anyone) in Italy would eat a heavy meaty or tomato and cheese lasagna in
summer, except perhaps on Ferragosto (Aug 15), when people often cook up
very rich fare.

What you do get, if you're within the Ligurian sphere, is lasagne al pesto
in the summer, made with the standard basil and pine nut pesto sauce and
(usually) a white sauce, and they're quite nice.

Kyle
http://italianfood.about.com