These days, fancy Italian restaurants in the United States all seem to have a pasta dish served with puttanesca sauce. Viewers of the U.S. cable channel Food Network have no doubts as to the current popularity of the dish; it seems that every celebrity chef on the show has a version of it. The dish, however, has a less wholesome origin.
Anyone who knows foreign curse words probably knows that 'puttana' is Italian for prostitute. Puttanesca, therefore, loosely translates to prostitute-style. So why would a simple dish get such a sullied name? It's quite simple, really.
Lady peddlers would make huge tubs of pasta and hangout in the red light district. The prostitutes would purchase bowls of the pasta in between customers to regain their strength. Puttanesca was cheap and energizing and eventually became tied to its less reputable customers.
In the mid-twentieth century, soldiers who occupied Italy during and after the war, took a liking to the dish. Its popularity grew, mainly because non-Italians didn't have any hang ups about the pasta's origins. Originally, puttanesca was something an Italian family might eat at home. It would never be served to guests- that would have been considered an insult. (It's like implying that the female guests were prostitutes.) Now, however, the stigma is leaving the dish, though it is interesting to note its less savory origins.
