All About Pasta

[divina]

QUOTE(divina @ Sep 24 2004, 05:44 PM)

Most Italians eat dry pasta twice a day..

I don't buy that.

I don't want Russ to send me to my room!!!

But I have been living in Florence Italy for 20 years, am married to an Italian..

MOST Italians have dry pasta twice a day. once for lunch and once for dinner. an 80-100 gram portion as a first course. Light lunch menu's will have pasta, meat ( also a 100-150 gram portion) with veggie for lunch.. about 10 Euro.

Fresh pasta is usually held to Sunday lunch, weddings and big parties as it is hard to digest and makes one sleepy! not good to eat when you need to get back to work.

Those who can't go home for lunch ( in a recent research.. 79% of Italians go home for lunch) may only eat a sandwich ...but mom will always have pasta!

Buon appetito!

Edited September 25, 2004 by divina (log)

[slkinsey]

If I am going to spend that kind of dough on pasta, I'm going to go the Bronx and get fresh stuff from Borgatti or I am going to go for some of that Tagliatelle Nero squid ink stuff for a special blow out seafood pasta meal. I just don't see the value in plain dried pasta that costs more than twice the price of Barilla, which is already pretty damn good.

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"If I am going to spend that kind of dough on pasta"!! Pun intended, I hope!

Seriously, though, I think this outlook reflects a little bit of what Marcella Hazan weighs in against in her books: the idea that fresh pasta is better than dry pasta. Why does $2.50 a pound for good quality fresh pasta seem like a reasonable price, and not $2.50 a pound for the very best quality dry pasta? Taking the opposite view, I spend more money on the dry stuff because there is no way a store can make fresh pasta that's better than what I make myself at home for 1/10th the price, whereas I can't make dry pasta at home at all.

But, I also think that the value one gets out of pasta, either fresh or dry, is also largely shaped by one's culinary practices and priorities. I tend to prefer my pasta dishes in the Italian style, which is to say fairly lightly sauced. This allows the pasta to play the starring role, and the sauce is just a condiment. Most Americans, on the other hand, tend to prefer their pasta dishes much more heavily sauced, such that the sauce is really the main event. This isn't necessarily an issue of one approach being inherrently better than the other (and I have no idea which style you prefer), but it is the case that the quality of the pasta will be much more apparent in the Italian style preparations. All this is to say that Barilla and De Cecco (etc.) are definitely quality products, but I have no trouble whatsoever immediately telling the difference between the better industrial dry pastas and artisanal dry pastas -- and I think this is true of most people who eat at my house. In fact, I remember the first time Fat Guy was over for dinner after I had started moving away from Barilla and De Cecco to brands like Setaro and Latini. He took one bite and said, "this is really good quality pasta."

[archestratus]

This is a strange conversation! I agree with Russ' comment that tasting pasta alone in a taste test is particularly American, and particularly strange. Who eats pasta alone? And this business of industrial and artisanal and which is better is also strange. Don't we all eat both depending on the occasion. When I'm making a quick dinner for my family I'll use either Barilla, DeCecco, Delverde, or some brand I never heard of that I got cheap. All you New Yorkers also must remember that we all ate Ronzoni (Remember: Ronzoni sono buoni?) which is a pretty good pasta. Then there is a third category which I haven't seen mentioned and that is homemade pastasciutta. So I might use artisanal pastas for a dinner parta, brands such as Latini or Rustichella. But for really special occasions I make my own. I use semolina, water, a little salt, and a little olive oil. I knead it by hand and then use a electric roller to roll. Then I almost always cut it into what the Italians would call malfadini or pappardelle. I let it dry for a week before using. One more thing about artisanal pastas. They have to be cooked a little different than industrial pastas. You have to use LOTS of water and it must be rapidly boiling. This should take care of the chalky or gummy taste people complain about.

[Jason Perlow]

By the way, I just bought several 12oz packages of mixed Barilla pasta shapes at Shop Rite for 60 cents each. Vat ah bargain!

No Setaro at Shop Rite, though. I think Jerry's in Englewood may have it.

[Fat Guy]

one of the things that i find interesting about the dried pasta tastings most other pubs have done (see related thread on pamela's board), is that they taste the pasta by itself. this seems to me to be a very american way of doing it--focusing on one ingredient without regard for the context in which you'd normally use it.

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It's a good start; it's just incomplete. A well-designed taste-test would include a blind comparison of the naked products, just as a comparative wine tasting would. But that would be incomplete (I happen to think non-contextual wine ratings are also incomplete). The next part of the tasting would involve a comparison that includes several appropriate sauces. I'm not sure that the failure to do that is particularly American -- the lowest-common-denominator and often ill-informed tests performed by Cook's Illustrated are by no means representative of a majority of Americans or of any group of Americans other than Cook's Illustrated's editors -- but then again I've never seen the European versions of such tests, if they even exist.

[Susan in FL]

Most Italians eat dry pasta twice a day.. DeCecco and Barilla probably being the most available.

At the Coop grocery store in Tuscany now.. we have a Tuscan Wheat Pasta that I adore!

To me Latini is starchy on the whole, I like the Senatore Cappelli a lot,

Pasta from Gragnano is great ( Setaro is made there) many producers have their pasta's made there and then private label it.

In Chianti there is a great producer Fabbri..

and of course the Calabrian pasta's are now some of the up and  coming favorites..

the hard wheat pasta's,bronze dies and drying techniques differ so much.. it is like comparing apples and oranges at times.

My Italian best friend probably has about 10 types of pasta at anytime as she never knows what sauce she wants..and that is how she chooses the pasta she will use!

I do adore the flavor of Setaro pasta though, a favorite with Napolitano's!

and when we look at what we spend to eat out.. it amazes me when people complain about ingredient costs..

Even traditional balsamic vinegar is only a $1.00 per person cost!

100ml is about 100 portions $100 per bottle..Traditional only cost around 45-48 euro in Florence... great deal!

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Divina, thank you for your input from Florence, Italy!

[Craig Camp]

Most Italians eat dry pasta twice a day.. DeCecco and Barilla probably being the most available.

Why divina, that's not true. Sometimes they eat risotto.

DeCecco is our workhorse brand around the house and is used about as often as divina suggests. I do find a difference between the Barilla made in the USA and that made in Italy with the American version seeming more gummy in texture. I am well satisfied with De Cecco.

I would have to say getting an Italian to spend more than a Euro on half-kilo of dried pasta would be unusual. Most of our friends here use Barilla or whatever is on sale and I have had many fantastic dishes in their homes.

There does not seem to be much use in comparing fresh vs. dry pasta as they are different things for different sauces. It is also regional, for example, all the main pasta dishes in Piemonte are fresh pasta (tajarin and plin) while the opposite is true further south. Pasta in Italy is not one thing, but many.

[Jason Perlow]

Why divina, that's not true. Sometimes they eat risotto. 

DeCecco is our workhorse brand around the house and is used about as often as divina suggests. I do find a difference between the Barilla made in the USA and that made in Italy with the American version seeming more gummy in texture. I am well satisfied with De Cecco.

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That is a bit strange considering that both Barillas use the same exact Durum Semolina from the US.

I haven't really found US Barilla to be gummy at all, but I ignore the instructions when cooking it. I take it out a bit earlier than most people and do the final tossing with the sauce in the saute pan which cooks it to the actual al dente point ready for eating.

I'm not sure all the Barilla sold the US is actually made in the US at the Ames plant, I think it is only certain shapes and types.

[Jason Perlow]

An interesting article about the Barilla company and their rise in popularity in 2003:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/f...illacover_x.htm

Barilla does little to discourage consumers from thinking its product is somehow more authentic. Its boxes are emblazoned with "Italy's No. 1 pasta," but they don't say where the contents are made. Its main English-language Web site makes no mention of Ames.

Any confusion is "obviously not intentional," Pereira says.

Barilla's Italian and U.S. plants use the same ingredients, methods and equipment, says Luca Barilla, who, with brothers Guido and Paolo, runs the business started in Parma, Italy, by their great-grandfather in 1877.

"Some people say the pasta we make in America isn't as good as the pasta we make in Italy. It is just not true," Barilla says. If anything, the noodles are better than in his father's and grandfather's day, "because we can buy better raw materials, including the best wheat, which is from North America."

Apparently I was only partially right -- according to the article only the Lasagne and Tortellini comes from Italy, everything else is made in Ames, Iowa, largely from Durum that comes from Arizona.

[Craig Camp]

That is a bit strange considering that both Barillas use the same exact Durum Semolina from the US.

I haven't really found US Barilla to be gummy at all, but I ignore the instructions when cooking it. I take it out a bit earlier than most people and do the final tossing with the sauce in the saute pan which cooks it to the actual al dente point ready for eating.

I'm not sure all the Barilla sold the US is actually made in the US at the Ames plant, I think it is only certain shapes and types.

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Perhaps gummys is too strong. I mean only in relation their pasta produced in Italy the texture seems different - softer. They say where they made the pasta on the package. Actually the only Barilla pasta I use regularly is the spaghetti.

[JosephB]

I was in Garden of Eden, an upscale maket in NYC, today and saw that that they carried Ronzoni Traditional. The box describes it as having a rougher texture to better absord sauce, etc. I forgot to note the price.

[heidihi]

My current favorite is Eduardo's brand. It is made here in San Francisco (I think), but available through Amazon's gourmet section. Hand-made, hand packed, all natural. I love it.

-h

[Pan]

I haven't seen any mention of Buitoni. When I was growing up in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the early 70s, the available brands of dry pasta in our local Sloan's supermarket and such-like typically were Ronzoni, Buitoni, and Muellers egg noodles (I believe I recall that more expensive Italian imports like De Cecco arrived later). Muellers always seemed to me to be cheaper for a reason (broke more easily, somehow, and was harder to get a good al dente texture from). I found Ronzoni fine but preferred Buitoni, which seemed somehow more dependable in texture. Did I imagine it all?

[vesnuccia]

well i live in italy last 13 years of my life and i like most eat pasta twice a day

i buy dececco when i'm in torino but every time i go south i buy the local factory pasta

for south i mean puglia, campania, calabria and sicily

i dont even no the names of them but they are all better than mass producted pasta

it's like buying parmigiano in busana (on apenino regiano) or balsamic viniagre in modena

most of types (names of pasta productors) i never heard about

next to dececco i put del verde

and i dont spent ever more than 1 € for 1/2 kg

Edited September 30, 2004 by vesnuccia (log)

[Scarpetta]

I'm puzzled by vesnuccia and divina's assertions that MOST Italians have pasta twice a day. Most should mean over 50%, shouldn't it? In that case I' pretty sure it isn't so. I'm Italian - I live in Alessandria, Piedmont - and I'm a professional cook. Apart from the fact that in my family we have pasta about 2-3 times a WEEK (and I love pasta!) I simply don't see around me people indulging in spaghetti or penne all that much. Not even in the south, were pasta is a religion.

BTW, my favored pasta is Martelli, which curiously nobody mentioned.

[Ore]

Ciao,

In a blind taste test at the slow food school, de cecco beat 4 other types, including barilla and three artigianal products! (not a formal statistic! for my class only!)

Ciao,

Ore

[robert brown]

Five years ago we walked into a small specialty foods store in the small square adjacent to the Castello di Barolo that two sisters own. We saw some dried egg pasta in long cardboard boxes covered with plastic. We bought mostly tagliarini and became so hooked on its silkiness that we always buy a dozen or so boxes each time we are in the region. We gave a box of it to Eli Zabar, hoping that he could import it. He loved it as much as we did, but when he asked about the possibility of selling it, the sisters said that they had already made a deal with Williams-Sonoma. However, I have never seen it for sale there or anywhere else outside of the Barolo district. I am still a bit confused who makes it; whether it is the Cravero sisters or a company in Monforte d'Alba that packages it for them because I have also bought some at the bar-enoteca in Monforte. The line is sfoglia all'uovo, which is egg pasta laid out in sheets. For sure the address of the factory is Localita S. Anna, 63. Monforte d'Alba (CN). They also make paglia y fienoa flat, square pasta with jagged edges whose Italian name escapes me, and a few others. Has anyone else had contact with this pasta?

[divina]

Being an honest observor... I should have said in Tuscany.. I live here in FLorence...and also outside in the countryside Certaldo.

Most everyone I know has pasta a small 80 gr portion for lunch and dinner. Myself... I eat with my students in class, where we almost always do a pasta..and then don't have pasta for dinner... but my husband will.

Another friend that works all day, has over 10 types of pasta at home, because she doesn't know what kind of sauce she wants for dinner..so covers her bases.

I do think that Italy is changing... no longer the long lunch ..so no going home to mamma... fast foods and the winebars are offereing new alternatives to the Menu fisso. When I first moved here in 1984, workers would all come in for lunch... perhaps a 10,000 lira meal ( then $5) and would get a plate a pasta ( 80 gr) and a main course with veggie ( 100 gr of meat), fruit wine, water and coffee.I still see this in the local trattoria's where workers go. same size portions.. same menu..

before in restaurants and trattoria's, only full meals were served..

with the euro now.. doubling the prices... you can just order one course.

Most tourists, that would be pasta.... they have also put large salads on as a meal.

I see stores open on Sundays..no more Sunday lunches???

I am sorry to have generalized...

Scarpetta being a professional chef.. how many clients order a meal with out a primo? or do they have soup or rice or polenta instead?

Edited October 3, 2004 by divina (log)

[Scarpetta]

Yes, divina, changes are going on in Italy... not only at the dinner table. As for the percentages of people having pasta with their meals, it varies a lot according to the season and whether we're talking lunch or dinner.

Salads have gained a solid position at lunch time (something almost unheard of until 6-7 years ago) during the summer. Cold minestrone and light soups like gazpacho or vychissoise are also popular, while polenta, pasta e fagioli, hearty soups and risotti with meat are coming into their own at this time of year, until next spring.

I would guess that on the average about one third of meal orders comprise pasta.

[vesnuccia]

well i was talking about my experience

i came in italy to study, so i was in tuch with students in privete and with others only professionaly (i worked as cook for years)

all of this in perugia , umbria

i was cook of primi (home made pasta too) and i can say that 70 % of how came to the restoraunt ate pasta too

4 years ago i came to torino

i've married a southern man (born in basilicata, lived 18 years in puglia and from 18 till now in torino) who ates pasta all the time and so do most of our friends, even though i can see some difference from who was born south and who on north my percentige is not lower than 50%

all of this in my experience :-)

kisses

Edited October 4, 2004 by vesnuccia (log)

[robyn]

Perhaps I am overracting or am just feeling the pinch from not being able to bill Wall Street clients $100 an hour and up for consulting services anymore, however we eat a lot of pasta around this house, and we frequently buy like 4 1lb boxes of Barilla for $5 when it is onsale at Shop Rite (or is it 5 for $4?). If I am going to spend that kind of dough on pasta, I'm going to go the Bronx and get fresh stuff from Borgatti or I am going to go for some of that Tagliatelle Nero squid ink stuff for a special blow out seafood pasta meal. I just don't see the value in plain dried pasta that costs more than twice the price of Barilla, which is already pretty damn good.

That being said, bring me over some Setaro next time and maybe after trying it I will think otherwise.

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Who doesn't like a bargain? Barilla is frequently on sale at Publix here - $2 for 3 boxes. And you can throw in a coupon for $1 off 3 boxes. Cheaper than eating dog food .

That said - I think the most important thing - assuming you're using a decent pasta (and I think Barilla is more than decent) - is matching the shape to the sauce/preparation - coming up with an appropriate combination. What works with a big winter meat sauce doesn't necessarily work with a delicate summer pesto - or a pasta salad. And when you live outside a major metro area (like I do) - sometimes your choices are limited. I like papardelle with my home made pesto - and there's only one brand sold here (forget what it is - but it's really good). Not to mention that the "gourmet stores" that sell high end pastas sometimes have stuff that's been sitting on the shelf for more years than I care to think about.

By the way - when I have a lot of time on my hands (which hasn't been the case lately) - I make fresh pasta at home. I'm not very good at it (I'm probably not unique) - and I therefore stick with flat rather than extruded pastas. Perhaps the best thing to make homemade if you're a rank amateur like I am is ravioli (which comes out nice and light - as opposed to the store bought stuff which could be used to anchor boats during hurricanes). Robyn

[Ninjai Fanatic]

I was just given this beautiful pasta maker for my birthday a few months ago, and I've been making a lot of pastas - but don't really like the doughs I've been making except for the lasagne one..

Does anyone have any eggless recipes for pasta dough that they'd like to share?

Thanks very much!

[pam claughton]

I was just given this beautiful pasta maker for my birthday a few months ago, and I've been making a lot of pastas - but don't really like the doughs I've been making except for the lasagne one.. Does anyone have any eggless recipes for pasta dough that they'd like to share?Thanks very much!

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We always make an eggless pasta dough. It's simple and easy. <a href= "http://efoodie.typepad.com/efoodie/2005/03/retro_raviolis_.html">This recipe </a> is for a large batch, but you can cut it down. I posted it on my blog, so just scroll down.:) Pam

[Kevin72]

What kind of pasta maker is it? Is it an electric mixer and extruder, or is it just the press?

Alot of Southern Italian recipes like orecchiette and cavatelli use only water and durum or semolina flour, but then they don't require a machine to roll them out: you just cut off pieces and then shape them with your fingers.

[touaregsand]

I was just given this beautiful pasta maker for my birthday a few months ago, and I've been making a lot of pastas - but don't really like the doughs I've been making except for the lasagne one..

Does anyone have any eggless recipes for pasta dough that they'd like to share?

Thanks very much!

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I do realize that this is the Italy forum, but the Algerians make fresh pasta dough with semolina flour without adding eggs to it.