Despite its Italian-sounding name, pasta primavera, like its culinary cousin, spaghetti and meatballs, is an American invention, and a relatively recent one at that. A search for its recipe in a pre-1970s cookbook will result in nil. I’m sure this wasn’t the first recipe for mixed spring vegetables and pasta with cream sauce, but it was the first to be recorded and named such.

As with many recipes with a history, there are many theories on how the dish came about, but most concur that it was invented by Sirio Maccione, owner of Le Cirque in New York City (later to become Le Cirque 2000 and then Le Cirque again). The story that I like the best comes from The Last Days of Haute Cuisine by Patric Kuh. Kuh writes that unlike his former friend, the late Henri Soulé, who owned La Pavillon (also in Manhattan), Mr. Maccione actually likes the company of cooks (just imagine!), particularly when they get together outside the pressure and tension of the restaurant.

One such gathering took place at the home of Ed Giobbi, a New York artist and accomplished cook. The list of others that were present reads like a who’s who of the 1970’s restaurant scene—Roger Fessaguet, Jacques Pépin, Pierre Franey (at one time chef at La Pavillion), Jean Vergnes (chef at Le Cirque at the time), Craig Claiborne, and possibly even James Beard.

Apparently Mr. Giobbi whipped up a little something to eat straight from his garden, which turned out to be the forerunner of the aforementioned dish. Back at the restaurant Maccione and Vergnes butted heads as too whether it should be made “more French” for their four-star restaurant. Not surprisingly, Maccione won out and tweaked it back to its more Italian form: replacing the butter with olive oil and Gruyere with Parmesan, and by titling it primavera—the Italian word for springtime, literally “first green”—rather than the French pasta aux primeurs.

About a week later Claiborne, who was then the infamous New York Times food critic, wrote about it in his weekly column. But customers were dismayed to find that it wasn’t on the menu at Le Cirque; keep in mind that at a swanky New York restaurant during the 1970s, pasta was not exactly considered gourmet, let alone worthy of being a regular menu item. Because of the regular requests for it, Sirio unofficially announced that it could be ordered “off the menu.” Thus, its notoriety spread by word of mouth (pun intended).

The recipe, in fact, became so popular that it was listed in the 1978 premier issue of Food and Wine Magazine. A simple Google search for pasta primavera today yields almost a half million hits. There are variations containing everything from sausage, chicken, and even autumn vegetables, and also one recipe that was thickened with corn starch. Variations come and go, many good and some undoubtedly not so good, but the original recipe is said to be made still at Le Cirque. Interestingly, I checked the menu on their Web site and pasta primavera was not listed. Maybe it reamins something that is ordered “off the menu.”