ravioli

The origin of the word ravioli is disputed. One theory traces it to the Ligurian rabiòle, meaning 'something of little value'—scraps of leftover meat wrapped in dough to avoid waste. Another connects it to ravvolgere, 'to wrap.' A third, less likely, links it to a Genoese family named Raviolo. The 14th-century merchant Francesco di Marco Datini recorded a ravioli recipe in a letter from 1392: chopped pork, egg, cheese, parsley, wrapped in pasta and boiled.

Ravioli appeared in the earliest Italian cookbooks. The Liber de coquina, compiled around 1300 in southern Italy, describes ravioli filled with cheese and herbs, fried rather than boiled. By the 14th century, ravioli was established across Italy with regional variations—Genoa filled them with meat, Sardinia with cheese, Emilia-Romagna with ricotta and spinach. The shape was always roughly the same: a sealed pocket of dough.

The concept of stuffed pasta is not uniquely Italian. Chinese jiaozi, Jewish kreplach, Polish pierogi, Turkish mantı—every wheat-eating culture independently developed the idea of wrapping filling in dough. What Italy contributed was the name and the industrial scale. By the 20th century, ravioli in tins—Chef Boyardee launched canned ravioli in 1928—had made the word global, even if the product bore little resemblance to the original.

Fresh ravioli remains one of the simplest demonstrations of skill in Italian cooking. The dough must be thin enough to taste the filling but strong enough not to burst. The seal must hold through boiling. Ettore Boiardi, the chef behind Chef Boyardee, was a real Italian cook who served ravioli at the Plaza Hotel in New York before canning it for the masses. He simplified his name so Americans could pronounce it.