Genovese candele

Genovese meat sauce, a feast of onion and meat, is, together with classic ragout meat sauce, the most traditional dish of Neapolitan cuisine. Its history though, is shrouded in mystery. In Naples, there are no doubts as to its origin, it is Naples for sure. But then why is it called Genovese? There are many different hypotheses, where paths intersect and divide. They lead us to the Aragon period, when there were many Genoese cooks residing in the city, or maybe there was a Neapolitan cook called “the Genoese”, or maybe he came from Geneva in Switzerland. Two things are certain: the first is that, already in the 14th century, we find traces of this dish in a Latin cookbook called Liber de coquina; the second, maybe more important, is that this dish has lived through the centuries from table to table and, just like regular ragout sauce, it has become a real cult recipe for Neapolitans today. The types of meat used for the preparation of this dish are the same as for regular ragout, and similarly it is cooked for many hours on a very low heat. Then, tripolini, ziti, manfredi, or candele, pasta shapes, cooked al dente are covered with this sauce, in which the onions, after long hours of cooking, have become a cream. The dish has a golden color and a sweet and inviting smell. The cuts of meat used are cheap and need to be cooked for a long time, but then become as tender as butter. This is why Genovese sauce deserves to be considered among the queens of Neapolitan tradition: humble ingredients, onions, second-choice meat cuts, and other precious ingredients, as well as a care for food and respect for the past. All of this has made this dish, though less known than others, the pride of our land, “Naples gold”.