Al Forno

In this episode we look at the origins and variety of Italian baked pasta dishes and pizza. Al Forno means "to the oven". Popular in southern Italy, there are many variations of baked pasta.

Lasagna is the most well know. to many but there are plenty of others that are fascinating and delicious. The practice of boiling flour in water and incorporating cheese dates back to the middle ages but the term lagana is derived from Roman times of layering sheets of pasta and the fire cooking. Lasagna as we know it today is Lasagna alla Bolognese, which elevates the dish to an art using sheets of spinach based pasta, a meat ragu and Bechamel sauce. The "glue sauce" was brought to France by Catherine De Medici of Florence during the Renaissance

We take a look at Timpano, a domed shape masterpiece pasta pie originated in Sicily which gained attention from the great movie featuring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub called Big Night.

We compare Timpano with a similar baked dome of pasta called Pasticcio Ferrarese

Yet another backed pasta, Timballo is structured similar to Lasgana and the Abruzzo region of Italy has Timballo di Crepes o Crespelle