Spaghetti
and
Meatballs
It is widely believed that spaghetti with meatballs was an innovation of early 20th-century Italian immigrants in New York City; the National Pasta Association (originally named the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association) is said to be the first organization to publish a recipe for it, in the 1920s.[2] Italian writers often mock the dish as pseudo-Italian or non-Italian [3] because, in Italy, meatballs are uncommon and smaller.[4] However, various kinds of pasta with meat are part of the culinary tradition of the Abruzzo, Apulia, Sicily, and other parts of southern Italy. A recipe for rigatoni with meatballs is in Il cucchiaio d'argento (The Silver Spoon), a comprehensive Italian cookbook known as the "bible" of Italian Cooking. Other dishes that have similarities to spaghetti and meatballs include pasta seduta 'seated pasta' and maccaroni azzese in Apulia.[5][6][7] Some baked pasta dishes from Apulia combine pasta and meat where meatballs, mortadella, or salami are baked with rigatoni, tomato sauce, and mozzarella, then covered with a pastry top.[8] Other pasta recipes include slices of meat rolled up with cheese, cured meats and herbs (involtini in Italian) and braciole (bra'zhul) in Italian-American and Italian-Australian slang, that are cooked within sauce but pulled out to be served as a second course.