Spaghetti primavera (the word means “spring” in Italian) is a dish that conjures up images of green shoots in the Villa Borghese and warming southern sunshine in the Bay of Naples. In reality, though, its roots lie in the somewhat chillier ground of eastern Canada. Or so it’s claimed: the origins of this Italian-American classic are as hazy as a glass of col fondo prosecco, but whether chef Sirio Maccione, co-owner of New York’s infamous Le Cirque, really came up with it during a hunting trip to Prince Edward Island, as he told the New York Times, or whether it was his wife’s invention, as he claimed in his subsequent memoir, by 1977, spaghetti primavera was, according to that same newspaper, “by far the most talked-about dish in Manhattan”.
It wasn’t long before this “mad jumble of vegetables over pasta” (as Amanda Hesser described it in the same pages three decades later) had migrated to more casual red sauce joints all over the States – and then, just as abruptly, it fell from favour, as such madly fashionable dishes often do. You can’t even get a primavera at Olive Garden these days. Thankfully, however, you can still make it at home – and when you do, you’ll understand why it was so popular.
