A few years back, I spent a week in Bologna. On the last night, we went to a local restaurant where we had the best meal of the trip: a large plate of sautéed wild mushrooms to start and then a lasagna Bolognese; spinach pasta with alternating layers of ragù and besciamella, a classic béchamel with cheese added. It was so light that I ate a huge portion and didn’t feel full.


Years later at Trattoria Sergio Gozzi, on Piazza San Lorenzo in Florence, these two sauces came together in a weeknight pasta: penne strascicate, or penne dragged through sauce. It starts with a classic soffritto, wine (chef Alessandro Gozzi uses white, not the usual red) and minced meat. What makes it distinctly Florentine is a jar Gozzi retrieved from the kitchen during a visit with the Milk Street team—a blend of cinnamon, cloves and other warm spices purchased from a third-generation spice seller around the corner.

Viola Buitoni, author of “Italy by Ingredient,” notes that nutmeg and cinnamon turn up in long-cooked sauces throughout central Italy. There’s a blend called sette spezie toscane—seven Tuscan spices—that includes juniper, ginger, cloves and sometimes coriander. "My mother always put cinnamon sticks in her stracotto alla fiorentina," she says, "and so do I."

The real trick was how Gozzi finished the sauce. He added besciamella, unusual for penne strascicate, says Buitoni. This swirl of cheese-infused béchamel was just the thing to turn a meat ragù into a creamier, richer sauce. It was like a deconstructed lasagna Bolognese, the final dish being greater than the sum of its parts.

Chris Kimball

Christopher Kimball is founder of Milk Street, which produces Milk Street Magazine, Milk Street Television on PBS, and the weekly public radio show Milk Street Radio. He founded Cook’s Magazine in 1980 and was host and executive producer of America’s Test Kitchen until 2016. Kimball is the author of several books, including "The Yellow Farmhouse" and "Fannie’s Last Supper."