The Marinetti pasta sauce is the recipe that won the competition, launched on La cucina Italiana in 1932.

The recipe has a vip author: Amedeo Pettini, the chef of the King! and he decided to dedicate the recipe to one of the judges of the competition: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the founding poet of the Italian Futurist movement, who had openly lashed out against pasta in his Manifesto of Futurist Cuisine.

Quickly summarizing, the Futurists envisage the abolition of pasta, “absurd Italian gastronomic religion”, considered the enemy of speed and modernity, and even banish cutlery, to recover “the prelabial tactile pleasure”.

It seems that dish got the approval of Marinetti even if it was a pasta dish.

The version I propose is simplified compared to the original, but consistent with it

Ingredients for 4 people:

300 g = 3 cups of pasta,

2 potatoes (you will use only the water and can eat the potatoes apart)

a thick slice of cooked ham,1 small onion,1 small carrot,

1 stick of celery, 2 tablespoons of tomato puree

3 anchovy boned fillets in oil (or anchovy paste in proportion)

a spoonful of pickled capers 4 artichokes,

EVOO 2 tbsp. of butter ,2-3 tablespoons of grated Parmigiano cheese,

salt and black pepper 1 handful fresh parsley

Sliced or chopped dried pistachios

Boil in salted water 2 peeled potatoes. Keep the water!

Finely slice the fresh artichokes and cook them in ½ tablespoon of butter and 1 tbs. EVOO in a pan. When soft, turn down and keep the on a side.

Cut the onion, carrot, and celery into cubes.

Chop the parsley

Cut the ham into small cubes and brown it in a pan with 1 tablespoon of oil and 1/2 tablespoon of butter.

After a few minutes, add onion, carrot, celery and cook for 7-8 minutes, adding the tomato puree and 4 tbsp. of the potato water.

Add a spoonful of parsley

 Let the sauce reduce

Add a tablespoon of capers and the anchovies

Pass quickly in a blender.

 Pour the sauce back in the pan.

 The sauce must be quite thick. Possibly softening with more cooking potato water

Cook the pasta in salted boiling water.

Drain it and pour it in the pan, tossing it in the sauce

Add a tbsp. of butter, a little Parmigiano and serve, garnished with the slices of artichoke and the chopped pistachios.

This sauce was created for any dry pasta or rice but it’s excellent even on a slice of bread.

The attack of the Futurists on some dishes of the Italian gastronomic tradition was a limited phenomenon, more cultural than gastronomic. But it is interesting that the Futurists give value to all five senses, not just taste, and try to mix cooking with various artistic disciplines, which lead to “redesigning” the dishes in decidedly new forms, of which contemporary cuisine is still debtor.

The provocative recipe book of Marinetti and Fillìa is of great historical interest because, for the first time, an artistic movement also considers cooking in the various art forms that it intends to subvert and redefine (painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, photography, cinema, design, fashion, music, theater, dance …).

Marinetti’s changes cannot be said to have been achieved because people seek harmony in the products of the Italian regional gastronomic tradition

The revolution that Futurism makes in the kitchen is on an aesthetic level and the external appearance of the dishes receives a shock

So his ideas on pasta and the Italian tradition in the kitchen may or may not be shared but they  have been an interesting stimulus.