For lunch today: pasta puttanesca

That translates to “pasta prostitute style.”

The cookbooks are full of fanciful stories of how that dish got its name.

They are wrong.  Knowing Italians, this is how it happened.

Two Italian young men are eating lunch.

“That looks good, what is it?”

“It’s pasta, dumbass.”

“I know that, what’s in it?”

“Tomatoes, capers, olives, garlic.”

“Where did you get it?”

“My mom makes it.  It’s her special recipe.”

“That’s your mom’s sauce?”

“Yeah.”

“So it’s whore sauce.”

“Fuck you dude.”

“Ha ha, whore sauce.”

“Fuck you!”

“Pasta whore style. (Over enunciated) Pasta puttanesca.”

“Fuck you.”

That’s how it happened.