Mushroom Ragout & Spaghetti

The basis for this recipe is from a recipe I cut out of the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer quite some time ago, but exactly when, is unknown. The newspaper noted, "adapted from Everyday Foods via Associated Press." The word 'adapted' is important here, because I found what seems to be the original recipe, and there are differences. So this is my version, although heavily based upon the two other versions. This may appear to be a lot of mushrooms, but remember, mushrooms cook down. For those interested, this is the link to what seems to be the original recipe:

https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1454228

Ingredients 6 servings):

4 slices of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 lb. cremini mushrooms, cleaned and quartered
1 lb. white mushrooms, cleaned and quartered
4 tablespoons tomato paste
3 teaspoons dried thyme
1 1/2 cups water + 1/3 cup water with 3 tablespoons flour mixed in
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1 lb. spaghetti
shaved parmesan

First, in a 5 quart saucepan, with lid, cook the bacon over medium heat, without the lid. Cook until crispy and then remove to a paper towel to drain. Add the onion to the hot bacon fat, cook until browned, which should only take a couple of minutes. Add the mushrooms to the pan, cover and reduce the heat a bit, removing the lid to stir regularly. Cook for about 15 minutes, by which time the mushrooms should be cooked down substantially. Add the tomato paste, thyme and the 1 1/2 cups of water, mix well. Cover and cook another 5 to 10 minutes. Add the parsley and red wine vinegar, mix in well. Add the flour/water mixture gradually, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and to cook out the raw flour taste. Add the bacon and mix further. Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti according to the instructions of the brand you are using, making sure not to overcook the pasta, drain. Either in a large serving bowl or in the pot used to cook the spaghetti, mix the ragout and the spaghetti together. Serve individual portions topped with shaved parmesan cheese.

With some shaved pieces of cheese atop the ragout and spaghetti

WORD HISTORY:
Ragout (Ragu)-This is something of a compound, although the first part is really a prefix, rather than a stand alone word. The main word goes back to Indo European "gews-tu," which had the notion of "taste, sensation of taste, pleasure of taste." This gave its Latin offspring "gustus," which meant "taste." This gave Old French, a Latin-based language, "goust," with the same meaning, which then became "goût." ^ The Latin prefix, "re-," meant "over again, once more, repeat," ^^ and this gave French "ragoûter," meaning, "bring back the taste, revive the taste." It was borrowed by English as "ragout" in the 1600s. Italian borrowed the word from French as "ragù," and English borrowed this, without the accent mark, as another spelling of the word, although an American commercial pasta sauce uses the spelling with the accent as its brand name.

^  The "^" mark used by French, called a "circumflex," is a more modern way of showing that there is a missing letter from the original spelling of a word, often an "s."

^^ The origin of the Latin "re-" prefix is uncertain.