The recipe is typical of the city of Catania but the origin is not certain. There are two most accredited versions. The first traces the name of the recipe to the work of the same name by Vincenzo Bellini, the famous composer from Catania: the recipe was apparently developed by a Sicilian chef on the occasion of the celebrations for Norma (1831), the composer's opera. The second version instead traces the origin to an exclamation of the Sicilian playwright Nino Martolgio: in front of a dish seasoned with tomato sauce and fried aubergines he seems to have exclaimed "This pasta is a norm" to indicate that it was prepared according to the rules art or, perhaps, referring to the beauty and perfection of Bellini's work of the same name.