The first ravioli I remember eating was Chef Boyardee's "Beef Ravioli in Tomato & Meat Sauce," which came glistening in a red glaze, sliding around a brown lunch tray next to soft green beans and a rock-solid chunk of "bread." The ravioli itself was soft and palatable; the sauce tangy and sweet, but not sickeningly so. As cafeteria food went, it wasn't bad. I was pleased. I was hungry, and then full. I was six years old.
Though Chef Boyardee may have largely popularized ravioli in my elementary school, my mind, and in the consciousness of America, the typically square dumplings—comprising a filling sealed between two layers of pasta dough—got their start hundreds of years earlier. According to Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat's A History of Food, one of the earliest ravioli recipes appeared in 1481, and consisted of a chopped meat mixture rolled in flour, then cooked in hot broth. (The Armenian dish of topic, little pasta bundles similar to ravioli, date back to the year 1000.) The dish evolved, spread from Italian shores, and gave rise to countless forms around the world: as kreplach for Rosh Hashanah, say, or breaded and deep-fried in St. Louis. It's become so ubiquitous that it even has its own day of celebration: Today, March 20, is National Ravioli Day.
In the decades since Chef Boyardee served as the highlight of my school lunch, I've eaten ravioli in countless sizes, and with countless fillings. Most recently? Ricotta and lemon at a seaside cafe in Sardinia; double spallina with Squacquerone cheese and rabbit at Michael White's Osteria Morini in Soho; the signature "Piccolo Sogno" at Chicago's West Loop restaurant of the same name; my fiancé's five-mushroom large ravioli with garlic and curls of Parmigiano Reggiano. These dishes, in their own way, were all very good.
Yet unlike these dishes, the best ravioli of my life was so confusingly good that I remember little else about it—not the name of the restaurant, the neighborhood, or even what time it was. There are few supporting details and not much of a supporting cast: Florence, this past July, is about as specific as I can get. The restaurant, with no awning and only a tiny menu in Italian taped to its window, was bustling, and we stepped in to escape the pressing heat. An off-duty policeman sat in my line of sight, eating his way through a pasta course, a meat course, and a dessert. I looked at the menu and the offerte del giorno, zeroed in on ravioli, and ordered.
As they first were many years ago, the steaming ravioli arrived covered in a tomato sauce—but the similarities largely stopped there. My taupe lunch tray was instead a blue ceramic plate with circles and evidently many years of use; the Kraft-brand grated cheese was instead a sprig of fresh basil. The squares of yellow pasta, at once firm and tender, housed a ground meat mixture unlike anything I'd ever had. The sauce tasted of fresh tomatoes and the brightness of summer, rather than the impatience of that window of time between lunch and recess.