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The working recipe — the Market List, the Method, and where it lives or dies
I
Origin
Abruzzo (widespread)
II
Description
The quintessential Abruzzese Sunday pasta: spaghetti alla chitarra (square-sectioned pasta cut on a wire-strung wooden instrument) served with a slow-cooked sugo di carne featuring tiny lamb or pork meatballs (pallottine). The chitarra's square cross-section holds sauce differently from round spaghetti — more surface area per bite. The pallottine are no larger than a hazelnut, browned in lard and simmered in tomato sauce for 90 minutes until swollen with flavour.
III
The Thread
—Fresh pasta with slow-simmered lamb sauce — the cross-border relative with shared pastoral heritage Molise
—Tiny meatballs slow-cooked in tomato sauce and served on long pasta — the shared Sunday tradition Neapolitan
—Short or long pasta with small meatballs in tomato sauce — the Mediterranean parallel Spanish
IV
Flavour Context
Square-cut pasta with greater surface area than round spaghetti, blanketed in a tomato sauce enriched by tiny browned meatballs — the canonical Abruzzese Sunday table
Pillars V — VII
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