The Murky Origins Of Pasta Alla Vodka

There's no shortage of sauce options when it comes to pasta: Pesto, brown butter sauce, cacio e pepe, and of course, the myriad of red and white sauces. But there are also combinations between these delectable dressings and one of the best-known is pasta alla vodka, a mixture of tomato sauce, heavy cream, and (as the name implies) vodka. Though it's usually associated with penne, vodka sauce can be used with any type of pasta.

But where did pasta alla vodka come from in the first place? Like a lot of foods, it turns out its origins are heavily disputed and somewhat hard to pin down. Specifically, five distinct claims across three different cities posit its origins: Two in New York City and three in Italy. There's even an entire documentary, "Disco Sauce: The True Story of Penne Alla Vodka," that gets into the various theories — though no one can actually say for certain which (if any) is the truth. From here on out, we'll be dealing mostly with theories, because there's precious little hard evidence about pasta alla vodka's origin.

Pasta alla vodka isn't the only food with disputed beginnings; the contested origins of chicken a la King involve no less than five different possible stories, and the mystery of the origins of the hot dog bun involves three claims. Though we don't know which story is true when it comes to pasta alla vodka, we do have a date range on the dish's creation: Sometime between 1960 and 1980. 

The New York theories are some of the more recent ones. Some sources claim Chef Luigi Franzese of the Orsini Restaurant conceived of the dish in 1979 as a means of thinning out a sauce with vodka. Food historians aren't convinced, though, often crediting Columbia University graduate James Doty with its creation in 1980.

But as author Barbara Kafka insists in "Food For Friends," pasta alla vodka was apparently popular in Italy in the 1970s before it gained mainstream success in America in the 1980s. This doesn't preclude the New York theories; Franzese was Italian, and the dish could've jumped back across the Atlantic to Italy after its creation. But it does make the Italian ones a little more intriguing.

There are three main theories that have origins in the country of Italy. The first is the earliest claimed specific date: Actor Ugo Tognazzi's cookbook "L'Abuffone" (English translation: "The Injester") from 1974. This book contained a recipe for something called "furious pasta," which involves a splash of vodka. The problem here is that while it does use vodka, this isn't quite the pasta alla vodka we know today; it's basically a pasta all'arrabbiata with vodka tossed in.

The other claims come from more recent books on the subject. In "The Ultimate Pasta Cookbook," Pasquale Bruno Jr. claims it originated in a restaurant called Dante in Bologna, while the more recent "Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Italian" insists it was invented in the 1960s by a Roman chef at Taverna Flavia who wanted to boost vodka's popularity in Italy. This last theory is somewhat thin on sourcing, but it would at least explain how a dish made with Russian alcohol became a favorite of Italians.

OK, so why the name "disco sauce," the other moniker pasta alla vodka sometimes goes by? According to the aforementioned documentary, it first became popular as a late-night meal in Italian discotheques during the '70s. 

Wherever this beloved pasta dish came from, though, we have its creator to thank for one of the most beloved and versatile Italian (or Italian-American) dishes on the planet. So next time you dig into a bowl of pasta alla vodka, be sure to thank any or all of its potential creators.