Bringing Italy To Your Table: Lasagna Style

By: Emma Bogursky

When it comes to trying ethnic food, everyone is always looking for the most authentic food they can find. They want a dish that will allow them to experience what that culture is truly like. Immediately people turn to restaurants, but over time that can get expensive. A single entree at an Italian restaurant can cost anywhere from $15 to $50. How are people supposed to experience different cultures with this kind of price tag?

One solution is to make these foods at home. When a restaurant charges you for a dish, not only are you being charged for the ingredients but you are also being charged for the labor that goes into making it. When cooking a dish yourself, you lose that extra expense and the dish becomes cheaper. However, who says anyone can make an authentic dish? There have to be some bounds that separate every single homemade lasagna from the “really good authentic ones”. In an article called What does ‘Authenticity’ In Food Mean in 2019? Jaya Saxena discusses how one of the possible ways to interpret what authentic food is is by looking at food specific to different regions in a country. By having food meant for people of that ethnicity, it is less subject to influence and change when transported. However, everyone has their own ideas of what qualifies as authentic. As shown in Saxena's article, researcher Stephen Christ argues part of authenticity in food is about the aesthetics and preconceived notions the consumers have. This can make it difficult to label a place as authentic because everyone has their own idea of what the ‘real version’ is that they are comparing it to.

When biting into an authentic lasagna, you want to taste the stereotypical little Italian grandmother who knows the recipe by heart and doesn’t measure any of the ingredients. You want to taste the hard work, time, and love put into the dish. But who has all of the time and energy required to make fresh lasagna from scratch? True, authentic lasagna means homemade noodles and homemade sauce. In a world like today, most people don’t have that kind of time. Eataly has brought fresh, authentic ingredients, straight from Italy, to countries all over the world. As stated on the website, its goal as a company is “to gather under one roof high-quality food at sustainable and reasonable prices for ALL, celebrate Italian biodiversity, and create an informal, natural, and simple place to eat, shop, and learn.” While customers shop for fresh, authentic ingredients from Italy, they are educated and shown how the fresh ingredients are made and can eat at one of the restaurants inside the business to learn how these fresh ingredients can work together to make a delicious meal.

Being part of a big Italian family, my grandmother’s lasagna has become a staple at every holiday and event. It has become a symbol of togetherness and love. When I think of authentic Italian food, her lasagna is the first thing that comes to mind. Using an adaptation of my grandmother’s lasagna recipe, and ingredients from Eataly, you can bring Italy right to your kitchen table with a few simple steps, and it won’t nearly cost you as much money as you would spend in an authentic Italian restaurant. So pop on some Italian music, smell the garlic, and get cooking!

Grandma’s Lasagna

Ingredients:

- 25 oz Marinara Sauce

- 1 lb Lasagna Noodles

- 8 oz Mozzarella Cheese

- 32 oz Ricotta Cheese

- 0.5 lb Parmesan Cheese

- 3 Eggs

Recipe:

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 5 to 10 minutes. Drain the noodles, and rinse with cold water.

2. Grate the mozzarella and parmesan, and combine it in a medium mixing bowl with ricotta and eggs. Heat the sauce in a small saucepan over medium heat until warm.

3. Preheat the oven to 350 ℉.

4. To assemble the lasagna, spread about ⅓ of the tomato sauce in the bottom of a 16x12 inch baking dish. Arrange half of the noodles lengthwise over the sauce. Spread with the cheese mixture. Layer the remaining noodles over the cheese, and finish with another ⅓ of the sauce on top.

5. Cover with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour, until it is no longer loose. Allow to cool slightly before cutting. Top each piece with a spoonful of the remaining sauce and enjoy!

Costs:

Ingredient	Brand	Unit	Cost per Unit	Portion Size	Total Cost Per Ingredient
Marinara Sauce	Lidia's	25 oz	$7.90	25 oz	$7.90
Lasagna Noodles	Eataly Housemade	1 lb	$9.90	1 lb	$9.90
Mozzarella Cheese	Eataly Housemade	5 oz	$5.90	8 oz	$9.44
Ricotta Cheese	Calabro	1 lb	$8.90	32 oz	$17.80
Parmesan Cheese	Agriform	0.5 lb	$10.90	0.5 lb	$10.90
Eggs	Feather Ridge Farm	12 eggs	$4.90	3 eggs	$1.23
Total					$57.17
Cost Per Serving				12 servings	$4.76

Thinking about this project, I was very excited to be able to write a food blog. I like how food blogs allow the writer to use a more personal tone and make it more conversational. I also enjoyed how it allowed me to bring in a personal recipe and share it with others. In my blog, I wanted to use cost as a way to entice the reader to make my recipe, rather than getting the dish at an Italian restaurant. However, being someone who loves to cook and bake, I know how time-consuming these recipes can be. I wanted to create a way that readers could learn how to make an authentic Italian dish at home, eliminating some of the cost while also making it more convenient. The best way I found to do this, and to tie it to my research paper about authenticity at Eataly, was to use Eataly as the source of my ingredients. By making this recipe, my readers can understand even more about how Eataly is authentic, while also saving themselves time and money. I used my grandmother’s lasagna as an outline, and ingredients from Eataly, to make this authentic dish. I also included a chart addressing the cost of each ingredient to show that it truly is cheaper to make it at home with Eataly’s ingredients than to order it from the nearest Italian restaurant. This chart shows the cost of each ingredient, the brand that I am using for my information, the size and price of one “container”, and the amount of that ingredient needed for the recipe, with the price of what that specific amount would cost. I then used these numbers to figure out the price of the entire recipe, and the price of one serving. With my recipe blog, I hope that my readers will be able to bring a piece of Italy into their own homes, with the help of fresh, authentic ingredients from Eataly that save money and time.