Pasta

Pasta is a type of grain food made from the flour of certain grains mixed with water and/or eggs, which is then kneaded and formed into various shapes, and boiled prior to consumption. While the name comes from Italy, pasta is very popular all over the world. The English word pasta generally refers to noodles and other food products made from a flour and water paste, often including egg and salt. More frequently, the term maccheroni (macaroni in English) is used for the same products, especially when in combination with cheese.

Pasta can also denote dishes in which pasta products are the primary ingredient, served with sauce or seasonings. The word comes from Italian pasta which shares its origins with "paste", meaning "dough", "pasta", or "pastry" as in "small cake". As recently as 1918 the English word "paste" was used instead of or alongside the Italian pasta.^[1] Today the word "pasta" is reserved for Italian-style noodles in English-speaking countries, while the word "noodle" has a more general meaning.

Dried Italian-style pasta is made from durum wheat semolina, which gives it a light yellow colour and a slightly chewy texture when properly prepared. It is traditionally cooked al dente (Italian: "with [a slight] bite"). The finest Italian dried pastas are rolled between copper rollers.

Certain American pastas are produced from a mixture of farina and semolina. Such pastas often have a different texture and flavor and are typically used in casseroles or other dishes. Asian-style noodles as well as most fresh noodles are made from regular (non-durum) wheat flour. Some pasta varieties, such as Pizzoccheri, are made from buckwheat flour. Gnocchi are often listed among pasta dishes, although they are quite different in ingredients (mainly milled potatoes) and mode of preparation.

Pasta is made either by extrusion, where the ingredients are forced through holes in a plate known as a die, or by lamination, in which dough is kneaded, folded, rolled to thickness, then cut by slitters. Fresh pasta cooks quickly and has a delicate taste, but spoils relatively quickly due to its high water content. Dry pasta generally contains about 10% moisture, which makes it shelf stable for about three years.

Packed refrigerated or frozen pasta can be found virtually everywhere in the world. More varieties tend to be available where expatriate Italian communities have taken root. Italian companies such as Arienti & Cattaneo Ima, Ostoni, and Zamboni manufacture machines for producing "fresh" packed pasta, which has a shelf life of around 7 weeks.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined that consuming five servings of fortified grain foods — a serving might be ½ cup of cooked pasta or a slice of bread, for example — could add another 220 micrograms or more of folate per day, to help people meet their recommended folate levels.

History

Creation Myths

The origin of pasta is a subject of many creation myths. Scholars, including Giuseppe Prezzolini, have rejected the legend of Marco Polo's importation of pasta from China. Before his return from his great voyage, in 1296, the Mediterranean basin was the setting for a prosperous trade in obra de pasta as pasta products were at that time known in Cagliari, Sardinia. This indicates that pasta had long formed part of the diet of certain Mediterranean peoples. Origins of this creation myth lie with the Macaroni Journal, the newsletter of the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association, an association of American pasta makes.^[2]

Lombard peasant woman Libista has been called the inventor of ravioli. Similarily, lasagne, lasagnuole e altri pinzocheri have been called the creation of Meluzza Comasca, who was given a celebrity's funeral after her death.^[2]

History

Some have associated the spread of pasta into Europe with the Arabs. This theory is based on the belief that nomadic peoples needed to provide themselves with a supply of preserved foods. The making of pasta products requires access to a reliable supply of flour or fine semolina, which entails the existence of regular harvests of wheat and milling equipment. The theory of nomadic Arabs creating pasta is also based on the assumption the nomads either lived near cereal farmers or devoted much of their energy to milling, whether with little hand mills or with larger mills.^[3]

The Greeks and Romans were known as farmers of wheat and refined consumers of its products. Inhabitants of Greco-Roman World inherited the culinary culture of Judeo-Christian tradition. As a result, a belief in the supremacy of leavened bread over all other cereal based dishes remained solidly anchored in the conceptions and credos of Western societies, impregnating the Judeo-Christian culture and featured in depictions of the classical world. By this reasoning, it follows that gruels and mushes represent a first stage of cereal based diets.^[4] This hierarchy of values, still in force today, originated in the Greco Roman world, where bread was considered to a superior food than gruels. The respective values attached to these preparations reflected a social hiearchy as well.^[5]

In this context, pasta products belonged to both the categories and therefore belonged exclusively to neither; they were made of kneaded dough, like unleavened bread, but, in common with gruel cereals, were cooked in moist heat.^[5]

The evolution of pasta continued with the reaching of the far boundaries of the exploitation of the sheet of dough. Pasta no longer constituted the sole matrix for the preparation of a great variety of pasta shapes. Another technique, which was vital in the development of modern day pasta involved modeling little fragments of dough with one's fingers or palms and rolling it on a surface to obtain what would now on be described with the generic term vermicelli.^[6]

While the words macharoni and vermicelli are attested in Italy as early as the thirteen and fourteenth centuries, it took the culinary texts of the fifteenth century to confirm the existence of these two shaping techniques, which tended to merge into a shared heritage. Genoese - style macaroni were made from a single sheet of dough, resembling threads or needles.^[6]

By the fourteenth century, the Italian people also had developed forks for eating pasta, indicating the popular consumption of pasta. A tale by Franco Sacchetti depicts two people sharing the same platter of steaming hot macaroni, one wolfing it down and the other remaining hungry.^[7]

The Italians had customs of their own; variations on pasta gave substance to their minestre (the Italian equivalent of potages). These lasagne, macaroni, and ravioli became so important that, after having been cooked in and served with the broth, they would be placed alone on platters; to this day, that style of eating bears the odd name minestra asciutta, or dry soup.^[8]

Accompaniments

Common pasta sauces in Northern Italy include pesto and ragù alla bolognese; in Central Italy, simple tomato sauce and amatriciana and carbonara, and in Southern Italy, spicy tomato, garlic, and olive oil based sauces, often paired with fresh vegetables or seafood. Varieties include puttanesca, spaghetti alla norma (tomatoes and eggplant), pasta con le sarde (fresh sardines, pine nuts, fennel and olive oil).

Fettuccine Alfredo, with cheese and butter, and spaghetti with tomato sauce with or without ground meat or meatballs are popular Italian-style dishes in the United States.

Pasta varieties

Pasta comes in many different shapes and sizes. There are simple string-shaped pasta like spaghetti and vermicelli, ribbon-shaped ones like fettuccine and linguine, short tubes like elbow macaroni and penne, large sheets like lasagna, and hollow pasta stuffed with filling, like ravioli, manicotti, and tortellini.

The basic ingredients are often the same, the shape and characteristics of surface makes various kind of pasta well suited for different kind of dressing.

References

Notes

Wikipedia information about Pasta This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pasta". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.