Spaghetti alla (Don’t Google Translate That)
A Singular, Neutral Event of a dish, not my top sauce but that’s okay!
If anyone grew up reading A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (which is in fact the pen name of actual author Daniel Handler), or if they happened to watch either the 2004 film or 2017-2019 Netflix series, then they would have heard of pasta puttanesca. Unlike Snicket, this dish, which appears in the first book of the series, is very much real, and true to the series’ style, the trivia surrounding it is a bit esoteric.
Apologies to all of my native Italian speakers. And while we’re at it, an advanced notice to my English speakers. The word “puttanesca” is an adjective derived from the Italian “puttana” originally, which most frequently translates to “prostitute” or “whore.” A bit crass, of an etymology, no?
There are a few working theories as to where the name comes from. The most popular is that the name was derived from its general ease to make, as puttanesca sauce consists of various cheap/affordable ingredients (anchovies, capers, garlic, olives, tomatoes) that can be tossed together quickly. As this theory goes, the dish can be made so quickly that a sex worker could throw it together between client visits.
It’s not my favorite read on a dish’s origins, but at least some fun can still be had with a name like that. Some people have given to dubbing the dish ”pastitute.” Dicey or not, points always awarded for wordplay.
Theory two posits that the word comes from “puttana” (again, sorry to any nonnas out there) being used as a general vulgarity, kind of like how we throw out our most popular two expletives as sentence fillers half the time anyway. Following this, “puttanesca” is more equivalent to someone saying that they just “threw a bunch of shit together” to make a sauce (hands raised, shoulders shrugged, you get the visual). I prefer this read. It ends up matching the sort of “kitchen sink” idea of just tossing in whatever is available and seeing if it works. It also gives you a fun fact that won’t get you scolded at the dinner table. Well, at least not as heavily as you might be otherwise, pottymouth.
Both live action adaptations of A Series of Unfortunate Events feature the scene from the book wherein the recently orphaned Baudelaire children (Violet, Klaus, and Sunny) are tasked with cooking dinner for their villainous new “guardian,” Count Olaf. Having never cooked a meal before, the three brilliant children do what they do best, using their respective skills and knowledge to make do of a bad situation—in this case, one of the very first in an unfortunately long, long, long list of bad, bad, bad happenings. I mean, just look at what the thirteen-book series is called, after all.
Extrapolating from its etymology, the dish does serve as a poignant metaphor for what is going to be a tough and tumultuous journey ahead for the Baudelaire orphans. But to those who are familiar with the series or those who are curious to check it out, know that the real story at play is how people can persevere through even the most difficult of circumstances.
It also helps that the kids inadvertently call the Count “puttanesca” when he asks them what dish they made him in the film. To be honest, it’s the most kind label that you could give his character, accident or otherwise.
Funnily enough, this was my first time having the dish for myself, despite having read about it back in elementary school. You never know when something from childhood might come up, but seeing the dish listed on a menu brought back a flood of memories from where I first heard the name. Those memories just so happened to be remarkably esoteric, macabre, and riddled with cheeky references from between the pages.
You know, my relationship with this series explains a lot about how I think nowadays…
P.S. The dish itself wasn’t my favorite thing (too savory, too fishy!), but the story behind my interest made it worthwhile
