History of Pasta
Nothing says Italy like its food,and nothing says Italian food like pasta.Wherever Italians have immigrated they have brought their pasta and so today it is basically an international staple.Unlike other ubiquitous Italian foods like Pizza and tomato sauce,which have a fairly recent history pasta may indeed have a much older pedigree going back hundreds if not thousands of years.To begin to unravel the long an often complex world of pasta we have to look at its origins and some of the myths surrounding this now worldwide food.
Many schoolchildren were taught that the Venetian merchant Marco Polo brought back pasta from his journeys in China.Another version states that Polo discovery was actually a rediscovery of a foodstuff that was once popular in Italy in Etruscan and Roman times.Well Marco Polo might have done amazing things on his journey but bringing pasta to Italy was not one of them,it was already there in Polo's time.There is some evidence of an Etrusco-Roman noodle made from the same durum wheat as modern pasta called "lagane" (origin of the modern word for lasagna).However this food,first mentioned in the 1st century AD was not boiled like pasta,it was cooked in an oven.Therefore ancient lagane had some similarities,but cannot be considered pasta.The next culinary leap in the history of pasta would take place a few centuries later.
Pasta Today
It is estimated that Italians eat over sixty pounds of pasta per person,per year easily beating Americans,who eat about twenty pounds per person.This love of pasta in Italy far outstrips the large durum wheat production of the country; therefore Italy must import most of the wheat it uses for pasta.Today pasta is everywhere and can be found in dried (pasta secca) and fresh (pasta fresca) varieties depending on what the recipes call for.The main problem with pasta today is the use of mass production to fill a huge worldwide demand.And while pasta is made everywhere the product from Italy keeps to time-tested production methods that create a superior pasta.
Dried Pasta
There are roughly 350 different shapes and varieties of dried pasta in Italy,even more counting regional differences.Shapes range from simple tubes to bow ties (farfalle,which actually means "butterfly"),to unique shapes like tennis rackets (racchette).Many,but not all of these types are usually available wherever pasta is made.By Italian law dried pasta must be made with 100% durum semolina flour and water,a practice that all but the worst quality pasta makers worldwide have since adhered to.However there are two factors in dried pasta from Italy that make it typically better than most other products:extrusion and drying methods.
Dried pasta,especially the more complex shapes (such as radiatore) are designed for grabbing and holding onto sauces.Dried tube pasta (ziti or penne) often has ridges or slight abrasions on the surface to hold onto the pasta sauce as well.These ridges and bumps are created during the extrusion process,when the pasta is forced from a copper mold and cut to desired length before drying.These molds,while expensive and prone to wear are favored for making the best dried pasta.However most producers worldwide use steel molds that produce pasta that is too smooth to hold onto sauce.Fortunately more pasta makers outside of Italy are starting to use the older style copper molds.
After the pasta is cut it must be dried using a process of specific temperature and time.This is another area where mass produced pasta falls short of good Italian pasta made the correct way.The mass produced pastas are dried at very high temperatures for a shorter time than quality pasta.Traditional pasta is allowed to dry slower,up to 50 hours at a much lower temperature.It is after the pasta is fully dried that it is packaged.The result is a product with a much better mouth-feel,quicker cooking time,and superior sauce holding noodles.