Is a Pop Tart ravioli—answering the old debate

For ages, people have been debating whether the snack and breakfast item is in fact ravioli—today we’ll answer the glaring question: Is a Pop Tart just another form of ravioli?

The Pop Tart has been the cornerstone of the North American breakfast since its inception, which was way back in 1964, according to a piece at fox17online.com. The release was extremely successful and the rest, as they say is history.

When it comes to the Pop Tart, breakfast is just the tip of the iceberg. The Pop Tart makes an exceptional snack and goes a long way in fueling you for the day ahead. I remember back in college, these helped feed the fire, especially when studying for long hours and even filling the day with sports.

Is the Pop Tart ravioli or are people just kidding themselves?

They aren’t all that nutritious, but they do give quite a wee bit in the old energy department, which teens and kids need loads of. And they are a great on-the-go-sort of snack.

I mean you’re supposed to toast them, but they’re absolutely fine and even delicious right out of the packet.

But a debate has arisen, as they so often do in the realm of food and the goodies we love to munch on, and many have often wondered—even argued—if the Pop Tart isn’t just another form of the classic Italian phenomenon known as ravioli.

Ravioli first was seen as a term way back in the 14th century according to Wikipedia, and this was in the personal letters of an Italian merchant by the name of Francesco di Marco Datini.

Over the long years since the item has become a staple of Italian cuisine and has been adapted over time.

In North America, Chef Boyardee has gained a heck of a lot of notoriety and earnings based on a canned version of ravioli that are sold to the masses. But for those of us who have more of a refined palate, ravioli are quite exquisite and are a staple of fine dining the world over by now.

Of course ravioli is stuffed pasta—usually square in shape—and is filled either with ricotta cheese and/or meat, but other delicious fillings are used as well. The creation is then sealed all around, boiled like pasta, and topped and/or sautéed with a variety of sauces, mostly red tomato, but cream-based sauces also go a long way.

So essentially, fresh pasta is rolled out until thin. Square shapes are cut out; a filling is then placed on each square, then another square is added to the top, equal in size and shape to the bottom square of fresh pasta, and if making by hand, the whole thing is then sealed with the ends of a fork all around the square. If circular in shape, the end result is known commonly as medaglioni.

Of course the Pop Tart perhaps needs no explanation at all to many of you if not all of you. It is a fruit-filled sweet packaged and prebaked good. In its original form, the Pop Tart was plain on the surface—essentially just dough, but over the years, toppings of chocolate, or even a white glaze was found on them.

But if we get down to it, we can have a crack at finally answering or rather addressing the age-old debate.

The Pop Tart is a baked good, a packaged one at that, and it is slightly dryer than your run-of-the-mill ravioli. If looking at the preparation of a ravioli dish, there is no way that the aforementioned Pop Tart can even be in the same conversation.

The only similarity here is the fact that they are stuffed with a filling. The filling is fruit-based for Pop Tarts, whereas with ravioli the stuffing is savory. So in terms of preparation and ingredients involved, ravioli are not at all or in any way anything like the Pop Tart.

Both are delicious, but really if we look at what’s presented here, Pop Tarts are nowhere near similar in any other way other than the whole stuffed aspect.

Pretty soon we’ll be calling Toaster Strudel ravioli. If anything, Pop Tarts and Toaster Strudels are more like puff pastry cannoncini, which are indeed a form of stuffed pastry, but they are closed only at one end.

So there you have it folks. But what about you, dear readers? Do you see a way in which the Pop Tart can be considered ravioli?