“Everything you see I owe to
spaghetti.” ― Sophia Loren
Well, if it’s good enough for
Sophia, it’s certainly good enough for us - and we’re not stopping at spaghetti,
oh no! This month is all about that most glorious Italian dish: pasta.
Ahhh,
pasta. We can barely imagine a world without it, but there was a time when it didn’t exist. So this week we’re starting at
that time and then moving forwards to share all our favourite pasta facts!
1) The first mention to pasta can be
found in Sicily in 1154 – that’s over 850 years ago!
2) But it wasn’t referred to in English
until 720 years later in 1874.
3) The word “Pasta” comes from Latin
and means “dough, pastry cake.”
4) Pasta is flavoured and paired
with all sorts of ingredients, but traditionally it is all made from durum
wheat and water.
5) There are over 300 different shapes
of pasta, with over 1300 different names (the pasta most-commonly known as
“cavatelli”, for example, has 28 different names depending on region and town)!
6) Pasta is divided by two main
classifications, pasta fresca (fresh) and pasta secca (dried).
7) Pasta secca is only considered
real pasta if it is made the proper Italian way. This means slow-drying it for more
than 50 hours in a copper mould and then in the open air. (The rest of the
world usually dries pasta in steel moulds at extremely high temperatures for
short periods of time, resulting in an inferior product.)
8) Unlike here in the UK, in Italy,
pasta is traditionally served as a first course, in small, simple portions.
9) There are three different types
of pasta dish:
a) Pastasciutta = cooked pasta
served with a sauce. (e.g. Spaghetti Bolognese)
b) Pasta in brodo = pasta as part of
a soup dish. (“Brodo” means “broth”.)
c) Pasta al forno = pasta as part of
a dish which is baked. (e.g. Lasagne)
10) You can’t just slop any old sauce
on any old pasta! Pair your pasta carefully
with your sauce. Take these examples:
a) Pesto = goes with long, thin
strands of pasta that it can stick to.
b) Tomato sauce = better with
thicker pasta.
c) Chunky sauces = better with
tubular or twisted pastas so it can sit in the holes etc.
11) Get your proportions right! You
should never have too much sauce – you’ve got to be able to taste the pasta
too!
12) It is estimated that Italians eat
over 60lbs (27kg) of pasta per person per year. That’s 3 times as much as they eat in the US!
13) In fact, Italians eat so much
pasta that the country can’t produce enough wheat to keep up, which has led to
Italy actually importing wheat from other countries to make its pasta!
And there you have it, all you
need to know about pasta. And if you want to see how it’s done the real Italian
way, head on over to Pizzeria Oregano now and try one of our 5 classic pasta dishes
for just £5!
Orecchiette Broccoli e Salsiccia
Tortelloni Ricotta e Spinaci
Spaghetti alla Carbonara
Penne all’Amatriciana
Tagliatelle alla Bolognese
Find more HERE.
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