When you've got eggplant, ricotta and marinara, just roll with it
First things first, says Lidia Bastianich. Before I can even get the first question out of my mouth when I call her to talk about one of my favorite Italian dishes, she wants to make sure I know something very important. 'Rollatini is not an Italian word,' she says.
No, it's not. In Italy, eggplant rollatini — the dish I'm interviewing her about — is known as involtini di melanzane, right alongside all the other involtini: di pollo, di carne, di vitello, di pesce, to mean little bundles of chicken, meat, veal or fish, 'anything you roll,' she says. 'Rollatini is an Italian American invention.'
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