I chose this dish because ravioli is one of my favorite Italian meals, and instead of buying it or eating it at a restaurant like I usually do, I decided to make it on my own! Although Italian food is not from my culture, it is by far one of my favorite cuisines to eat. The reason why I chose ravioli specifically is because it is known as one of the most traditional foods in Italian cuisine. The unique thing about ravioli is that the filling inside of it varies with whatever you decide you want to put in it. Although ravioli originated in Italy, there are many other variations of it in Turkish and Indian cuisine as well. In Turkey, manti is a similar dish that consists of meat and paprika sauce. In India, there is a popular dish called gujiya, which is also very similar to ravioli except it is savory. Gujiyas are sweet dumplings that are made with flour and filled with dry fruit. It is dipped into a sweet syrup and oftentimes served as an Indian dessert. There are many commonalities between ravioli and certain Chinese dumplings as well!

Ravioli is a very popular dish that dates back to the 14th century (cucinaventi.com). The word “Ravioli” is derived from an old Italian word riavvolgere, which actually means "to wrap" (cucinaventi.com). In ancient Italy, ravioli used to be served every Friday as well as during Lent. Even nowadays, it is very common in Italian cuisine to serve vegetarian ravioli on Fridays and include meat dishes on the side (toscanaslc.com). Francesco di Marco Datini, was one of the first merchants that introduced the recipe for ravioli. He said it consisted of “hopped blanched green herbs, fresh cheese, and beaten egg, then simmered in broth,” this is surprisingly very similar to what ravioli consists of today (toscanaslc.com). Although it may be surprising, ravioli was actually not served with tomato sauce until the 16th century. Before tomatoes were introduced in Italy, ravioli was served simply with broth. Ravioli has become such a popular dish simply because of its unique shape and delicious taste. In fact it is now so popular in the U.S there is even a national holiday named after it on March 20th entitled, “National Ravioli Day” (cucinaventi.com).

The cooking process was a fun, but challenging and messy one to say the least! It was nothing like I expected, and it was a lot of trial and error until I finally got a precise way of making the pasta. There were many steps that had to be redone, but I feel like that is what cooking is all about. I wouldn’t have been able to know what was right until I had tried multiple ways to make the dish. With cooking there is no way of knowing how successful it will be until you see the final product. Although this took multiple hours, and was not as easy as just ordering the dish from a restaurant, it was a lot more rewarding to actually make it myself, which in turn made eating the meal a lot more enjoyable than most. This project was an extremely fun and challenging one! It allowed me to leave my comfort zone, and make something I wasn’t familiar with making before, as it wasn’t from a culture I grew up in. It has also now inspired me to try to make other dishes and recipes that I wouldn’t normally make.