Caution: Spoilers ahead
In the new Garfield movie released in May 2024, Garfield orders $600 worth of takeout, all delivered by drone, to create an onslaught of flying objects designed to destabilize the villains attempting to harm him and a family member while all attempt to remain on the top of a moving train. It’s dramatic.
As a large foil take-out container arrives, Garfield grabs and opens it, peers in, and announces something to the effect of, “I now know what the purpose of salad is,” before promptly pouring the fully-dressed salad across the top of the train. The villains proceed to charge forward only to slip and fall on the oily leaves. It’s a victorious moment for lasagna-lovers everywhere.
Unlike Garfield, I do love salad with my lasagna and on its own as a meal (Elaine’s “big salad” from Seinfeld was an important influence), and I will continue to make this perfect trifecta for Italian Night at my house, whether it’s also Movie Night or not. The combination of warm, salty cheese mixed with rich, marinara sauce, in contrast to the crusty bread and crunchy cucumbers creates a lovely plate of flavors, textures, and colors.
Why do people in the United States love lasagna so much? Well, pasta is delicious. In On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Harold McGee clarifies why: “the keys to pasta’s appeal are its moist, fine, satisfyingly substantial texture and its neutral flavor, which makes it a good partner for a broad range of other ingredients” (571). And while Italian food and Italian American food comprises many other dishes and courses, red-sauce-based pasta and pizza have become synonymous with Italian food for the US public, two classic dishes representing “American red sauce cuisine” first encountered in the restaurants of Italian neighborhoods in US cities, “meeting non-Italian expectations of meat and starch served together in one course” as Lucy M. Long explains in Ethnic American Food Today (322).
Yum…protein and starch mixed together? That sounds like comfort. No wonder the Olive Garden, Pizza Hut, and similar restaurants have become so popular, and you can find pasta dishes on the menu of every sports bar and casual dining restaurant across the nation. As I noted in Lasagna: Movie Night Part 3, lasagna and its variants have been popular since the 1960s, and the dish is a staple contribution to community cookbooks, as well as an expected recipe in most encyclopedic American cookbooks. People actually argue about which frozen version is their favorite.
But I’ll keep making Cathy Knutson’s version.
This post is part of an ongoing series in which I make and reflect on recipes and the people who contributed them to the 1985 Oak Valley Lutheran Church compiled cookbook, The Joy of Sharing.
