The exact origins of
penne alla vodka are unclear and, to some extent, the subject of
urban legend and
folklore. The first use of vodka in a pasta dish recorded in a cookbook is attested to 1974, when the Italian actor
Ugo Tognazzi published the cookbook ''L'Abbuffone'' (meaning 'the bouffe-men', named after Tognazzi's movie
La Grande Bouffe), which included his recipe of ''pasta all'infuriata
(), described as a sort of pasta all'
arrabbiata'', made with ½ kg of penne, ½ kg of fresh peeled tomatoes, a shot of vodka,
chili pepper, oil, garlic, and
bay leaves. Tognazzi suggested also that, if using a Polish vodka with chili ("formidable, tremendous, very strong, very hot, deadly"), the fresh chili pepper can be omitted. There have been multiple, often conflicting, claims to the invention and history of the dish; one author claims that it was invented at Dante, a restaurant in
Bologna. One cookbook claims that it was invented in the 1980s by a Roman chef for a vodka company that wanted to popularize its product in Italy. The dish may have been common in Italy before becoming popular in America in the early 1980s. Luigi Franzese of Orsini's Restaurant in New York City claims to have improvised the dish in the 1970s when using vodka to reduce a tomato sauce, calling it
Penne à la Russia. On October 25, 2016, the Italian Association of Confectionery and Pasta Industries named it the symbolic dish of the 18th World Pasta Day organized in Moscow, as a symbol of friendship between Italy and Russia.
Barilla later found
penne alla vodka was the second most sought-after dish of pasta in search engines, behind only
pasta alla bolognese. ==Composition==