Pappardelle al Ragù di Lepre

Hare is not rabbit. Americans confuse them constantly, but Tuscans know the difference in their bones. Hare is wild, dark-fleshed, and lean. It runs through the hills of Chianti and the forests below Siena. It tastes of the land: iron and herbs and something untamed. Rabbit is domesticated, pale, and mild. You braise rabbit for an hour. You braise hare for three.

This ragù belongs to the hunters and the farmwives who cooked what the hunters brought home. It is ancient food. Boccaccio mentions hare ragù in the Decameron, written in the fourteenth century. The dish has changed little since. You still need a whole bottle of wine, a proper soffritto, and the patience to let everything surrender to heat and time.

The pappardelle must be fresh. Wide egg ribbons, at least an inch across, with rough edges that catch the sauce. Dried pasta cannot do this work. The noodles need to be supple enough to wrap around shreds of meat, absorbent enough to drink in the braising liquid, tender enough to yield completely on the tongue.

Simple does not mean easy. This dish requires hours at the stove and attention throughout. But when you lift that first forkful of wide, sauce-dark pasta to your mouth, you will understand why Tuscan hunters have made this same dish for seven hundred years.