Starved for calamari recognition?

Eighty-six the calamari.
As you are most likely aware, Rhode Island is still without an official state appetizer. Calamari, fried up tender and served with spicy pepperoncini, appeared to be on the fast track to fame as the Ocean State’s culinary standard-bearer.
A handful of restaurants around the state had jumped on the bandwagon and had been promoting their version of the popular dish as “Rhode Island’s State Appetizer” not long after Rep. Joseph McNamara, D-Warwick, introduced House Bill No.5654 way back in February.
The legislation cited that among other things, “squid is to Rhode Island what lobster is to Maine and cod is to Massachusetts.” On March 27, the Health, Education and Welfare Committee recommended the measure be held for further study. To use a restaurant analogy, at that point the bill was on the warming table in the kitchen waiting for a server to bring it to the table but that server had a big party to wait on and would not get to it for a long while.
The bill was not dead yet. As the contentious 2013 General Assembly session reached its end, the calamari bill was still up for a vote. At the 11th hour of the last day of the session on July 3, the legislation was one of the last items on the Senate’s calendar. But alas, the Senate adjourned without voting on it.
McNamara’s bitter disappointment was clear in his comments to the media that night. He described the action – or lack thereof – as a “symbolic insult to the state’s fishing industry,” and “petty politics at its worst.”
We won’t starve officially, however. There is the state fruit, the greening apple, or perhaps the state bird, the Rhode Island Red or the state fish, the striped bass.
Lucky for us, we still have lasagna, even if we have to share it with the rest of the nation. July 29 is National Lasagna Day and there is a local celebration: Angelo’s Civita Farnese on Providence’s Federal Hill will be celebrating National Lasagna Day with the rest of the nation. Lasagna is described by the organizers of the day as “a favorite Italian dish of millions of Americans.” It is considered a cuisine of central Italy with several regional variations.
In the southern provinces of Italy, the sauce is mostly a simple tomato sauce and ragu, whereas in northern Italy, a Béchamel sauce is more popular. According to food historians, lasagna’s name may derive from a Greek word that refers to flat, thin unleavened bread. The Romans adapted the word as “lasanum,” Latin for “cooking pot.” Italians would later use this word to refer to the pan in which lasagna is prepared.
Publicity material provided for the day brings up a good point about the timing of a celebration of a hearty, stick-to-your-ribs dish in the middle of the high summer: “We all would eat it more often, but this culinary work of art, made with loving hands, takes time to make and bake.”
Valerie LeDuc, Angelo’s vice president of operations, invites Angelo’s guests to help commemorate National Lasagna Day by sending in a favorite lasagna recipe with a picture.
A panel of celebrity lasagna experts will pick one recipe that they would like to try and the home chef who created it will be invited to the restaurant to cook it on the afternoon of July 29. The public is invited to a tasting that evening at 7 p.m.
For the record, there are no congressional records or presidential proclamation for National Lasagna Day. And it would appear that calamari still has the inside track for official Rhode Island recognition, the recent legislative action notwithstanding.
And if we have to share a food celebration with the rest of the country, at least lasagna is a dish that serves many, so there will be enough to go around. •


Bruce Newbury’s “Dining Out” food and wine talk radio show is heard Saturdays and Sundays on WPRV-AM 790, weekdays on WADK-AM 1540 and online and mobile app on iHeartRadio. He can be reached by email at bruce@brucenewbury.com.

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