Lasagna is both wholesome and filling, a perfect ambivalence between the taste and the simplicity. Truly, lasagna is the champion food of North America. Like all popular people, places and things, lasagna has broken through to the lime light and made cameo appearances in movies, songs, visual art and other veins of modern pop culture. Let’s take a look at how lasagna has, in its small way, shaped the world we live in.
Movies: The Killer Lasagna
This B-movie was released back in 2002. It stars a young Arianne Brogini who lovingly crafts a lasagna for a few friends. After a successful dinner party, the remainder of the lasagna is kept in the fridge for safe storage. Unfortunately, the fridge that is housing the lasagna malfunctions and releases R-600a, a foul and toxic gas that, combined with the low temperate, mutates the lasagna into a sentient being. Filled with a mixture of rage and blood-lust, the monstrosity that once was a lasagna goes about eating any human that stands in its path – Oh, the irony!
Music: La-La-La-Lasagna
In 2009, popular comedian musician Weird Al Yankovic – famous for recreating popular music with new lyrics – rewrote the lyrics to Ritchie Valens’ 1958 smash hit La-Bamba. The new lyrics suggest a narrative of a man who has achieved mastery of Italian cuisine. As the song goes early on, we, the listener, are about to leave when Weird Al stops us to tell us dinner is done – “Ay, you supper’s a-ready now, where you go … ‘samatta you”. Throughout the song he suggests to us, the listener, to taste is various pasta dishes that he has created. No clues are given as to why he made so many pasta dinners at once, but continuously returns to the lasagna and reminds of us its superior command of Lasagna creation. The song concludes with a powerful Latin cadence in the peppy style that is La-Bamba.
Animation: A Popular Orange Cat
Of all the pop-culture references that have successfully roped in lasagna as its symbology. None has taken it to the extremes like Jim Davis’ Garfield. Garfield didn’t begin as an animated series, however. In 1978, Jim began writing Garfield as a comic strip for new papers. Through successful marketing, Garfield is still to this day the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world. The story follows Garfield and his owner Jon, who is completely submissive to the behavior of Garfield. Throughout the series, Jon continuously makes lasagnas for his own personal pleasure, just to have Garfield pilfer it repeatedly. Jon suffers from depression as most of his dialog is over overbearingly negative. This is due to his struggling love life, failing career and his cat who eats his dinner. Though it may seem like Garfield is the root of Jon’s suffering, this is not the case. As evidence to the popular independent comic adaptation Garfield minus Garfield, Jon proves himself as a stick in the mud, even without his furry companion.
There you have it! Three great examples of how Lasagna has made its way from delicious family dinner to pop super sensation. What’s next for the starring dinner whose age has reached antiquity?
