Lasagna

Lasagna is the widest of the ribbons, flat sheets of pasta whose name is older than almost any other in the pantry: it descends through the Latin laganum from the Greek laganon, a thin sheet of dough, and the Romans were layering versions of it two thousand years ago. Strictly the word means the pasta sheet, not the famous baked dish, which Italians call lasagne al forno. Two great traditions claim it: Emilia-Romagna, where lasagne verdi alla bolognese layers green spinach egg pasta with slow ragù, béchamel, and Parmigiano, and Naples, where the exuberant lasagne di Carnevale piles in sausage, little meatballs, ricotta, and hard-boiled egg. Tomato is a latecomer to both, arriving only in the nineteenth century.

Broad, flat rectangles or squares of pasta, the widest of the flat family by a distance, made as fresh egg sfoglia in the north (rolled paper-thin, in Bologna traditionally by a sfoglina) or as dried semolina sheets, sometimes with a ruffled edge. Unlike a strand or ribbon meant to be twirled, lasagna is built to be layered and stacked, a structural pasta as much as a shape. Green versions take their color from spinach worked into the dough.

Lasagna's whole purpose is to layer. The broad sheets stack with sauce, cheese, and filling between them and bake into a set, sliceable whole, the pasta acting as both ingredient and architecture. This is why it is a dish for a crowd and a holiday, and why the sauces that suit it are the rich, buildable ones, ragù and béchamel in the north, meat and cheese in the south, rather than anything you would toss.

1. 01Alla bologneseGreen sheets, ragù, béchamel, Parmigiano; the Emilian monument.
2. 02Di CarnevaleThe Neapolitan Carnival version: sausage, meatballs, ricotta, egg.
3. 03Al fornoThe plain baked template: ragù and béchamel, without spinach sheets.
4. 04Ai funghiA meatless layering of mushrooms and béchamel.