Spaghetti alla puttanesca

Because means roughly 'whore' or 'prostitute' and is an adjective derived from that word, the dish may have been invented in one of many bordellos in the Naples working-class neighbourhood of Quartieri Spagnoli as a quick meal taken between servicing clients. Alternatively, food historian Jeremy Parzen suggests: "Italians use (and related words) almost the way we use shit, as an all-purpose profanity, so might have originated with someone saying, essentially, 'I just threw a bunch of shit from the cupboard into a pan'." ==Origin==

Various recipes in Italian cookbooks dating back to the 19th century describe pasta sauces very similar to a modern under different names. One of the earliest dates from 1844, when Ippolito Cavalcanti, in his , included a recipe from popular Neapolitan cuisine, calling it . After some sporadic appearances in other Neapolitan cookbooks, in 1931 the Touring Club Italiano's lists it among the gastronomic specialties of Campania, calling it . The dish under its current name first appears in gastronomic literature in the 1960s. The earliest known mention of is in Raffaele La Capria's (Mortal Wound), a 1961 Italian novel which mentions "" (). The sauce became popular in the 1960s, according to the Professional Union of Italian Pasta Makers. Nonetheless, the 1971 edition of the (The Silver Spoon), one of Italy's most prominent cookbooks, has no recipe with the name , but two recipes that are similar: the Neapolitan is made with anchovies and generous quantities of oregano, while is distinguished by the addition of green peppers; still again, there is a Sicilian style popular around Palermo that includes olives, anchovies, and raisins. In Dom DeLuise's 1988 cookbook, ''Eat This... It'll Make You Feel Better!, he offers a recipe named "Puttanesca Sauce (Harlot Sauce)", which he explains was introduced to him by Caterina Valente during the filming of The Entertainers'' in 1964. DeLuise's recipe calls for both olives and capers, along with red pepper flakes, but no anchovies or oregano. ==Basic recipe==

The sauce alone is called in Italian. Recipes may differ according to preferences; for instance, the Neapolitan version is prepared without anchovies, unlike the version popular in the Lazio region. Spices are sometimes added. In most cases, however, the is a little salty (from the capers, olives, and anchovies) and quite fragrant (from the garlic). Traditionally, the sauce is served with spaghetti, although it is also paired with penne, bucatini, linguine, and vermicelli. Garlic and anchovies (omitted in the Neapolitan version) are sautéed in olive oil. Chopped chili peppers, olives, capers, diced tomatoes, and oregano are added, along with salt and black pepper to taste. The cook then reduces this mixture by simmering and mixes it with the spaghetti al dente. The final touch is a topping of parsley. ==Culture==

As of the late 1990s in Naples, the term "" rarely appeared on menus; rather, the sauce was referred to as marinara. A marinara sauce in the Campania region was not simply a tomato sauce, as it was elsewhere, as it contained fish, often anchovy. By adding capers and olives, some Neapolitans could distinguish the dish of from this marinara. Others did not draw such a distinction, considering a marinara and sauce identical. ==See also==