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Everything You Need to Know About Pasta

5/6/2020

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The History of Pasta

Dispelling a myth: The popular legend that Marco Polo brought back Chinese pasta is in fact a fictional story invented at the beginning of the 20th century by Macaroni Journal, an American journal published by the pasta industry and perpetuated in Hollywood films.
Of course, the Chinese had their own evolution of noodles: The earliest written record of noodles made from wheat is from a book dated to the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD).
In 2002, archaeologists found an earthenware bowl containing world's oldest known noodles made from millet flour, about 4000 years old, at the Lajia archaeological site along the Yellow River in China.
Proof that Marco Polo didn't discover pasta in China is found in a will penned in the year 1279 by Ponzio Baestone, a Genovese soldier who referenced "bariscella peina de macarone" (a small basket of macaroni). This was written 16 years before Marco Polo returned from China.
There is archaeological evidence suggesting the Etruscans made pasta as early as 400 B.C.
The Roman poet Horace wrote in 35 B.C., “I come back home to my pot of leek, peas and laganum”. Laganum was a flat dough, cooked first in water, then fried in oil, and in later years the frying was omitted.
Historians think laganum was the first sheet pasta and was used like lasagna is used today. Written in the 1st century A.D., the Roman cookbook Apicius, contains a recipe that describes layering laganum with meat and other ingredients like modern day lasagna.
The first Western mention of boiled noodles (called itriyah) is in the Jerusalem Talmud of the fifth century A.D., written in Aramaic, where the authors debate whether the boiled dough satisfied the laws about the use of unleavened bread.
In the 9th century, there are at least two written descriptions of itriyah (used as an Arab word) being used to describe the long, flat pasta called vermicelli (little worms).
In the 12th century, an Arab geographer, commissioned by the Norman king of Sicily, reported seeing pasta called itriyah being made.
From itriyah is derived the current day Sicilian dialect word for spaghetti, tria.
By 1400, pasta was being produced commercially in Italy. The pasta dough was kneaded by foot, a process that could take all day long. The dough was then extruded through bronze dies under great pressure, via a large screw press powered by two men or one horse. This pasta was dried for long storage.
In the 14th century, Sardinian merchants used the expression obra de pasta to refer to the dry pastas that they exported abroad.
Pasta came first... tomatoes were introduced in Italy in the 16th century but were not paired with pasta until the 18th century.
Thomas Jefferson was credited for bringing the first macaroni machine to America in 1789 after falling in love with macaroni in Naples.
The industrial era began at the end of the 19th century with the development of hydraulic presses, when all pastas were made from hard wheat.
The spread of pasta around the world was due in part to the immigration of Italians at the end of the 19th century, who brought their recipes and techniques to the USA and Latin America.

Drying spaghetti, Naples 1900.

Pasta press, 1950s, Naples

Modern pasta extruding

Interesting Pasta Facts

Contrary to the Great Spaghetti Tree Harvest April Fool’s Day Hoax of 1957, pasta never has grown on trees.
The average person in Italy eats more than 51 pounds of pasta every year.
The average person in America eats only 15 pounds of pasta every year.
Top-quality pasta in Italy is made from durum wheat flour, which curiously is grown in North Dakota and shipped to Italy.
The United States with a population of over 320 million people produces 1.9 million tons of pasta annually.
Italy has about 60 million people and produces 2.75 million tons of pasta annually.
Each year, over 13 million tons of pasta are produced worldwide.
To cook one billion pounds of pasta, you would need over two billion gallons of water--enough to fill 75,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.
In Italy, pasta is the first, or Primo course and stands on its own.
In Italy, meat is not served in pasta recipes, but is served as the Secundo (second) course.
In Italy, pasta may be served with certain fruits of the sea, such as mussels or octopus.
Spaghetti and meatballs doesn’t exist in Italy, aside from in tourist restaurants.
The regional Abruzzo dish, Chitarra con Pallottini, is the closest thing to spaghetti and meatballs in Italy, pairing tiny meatballs with square sided spaghetti made on a wired pasta tool called a chitarra.
Spaghetti Bolognese doesn’t exist in Italy. In the area of Bologna the dish is called Ragù con tagliatelle.
Pasta isn't always cream colored: spinach makes it green, red pasta uses tomato, dark gray or black pasta uses squid ink, orange pasta contains carrots or pumpkin, green pasta can contain spinach or basil.
There are approximately 1500 different pasta shapes in Italy, with perhaps 5 times the number of names for each pasta shape, depending on region.
The most popular shapes of pasta in the U.S. are spaghetti, penne and rotini.
Historically in France, pasta were called nouilles, macaroni and lasagnas. In Provence, they were called menudez, macarons, vermisseaux or fidiaux.
There are two types of pasta: Fresh and dried. The fresh type is typically made with eggs, but can also be made with just water or olive oil and is used immediately or can be frozen for later use.
Dry pasta is made using water, and since it contains no eggs can be stored for very long periods of time--often years. Historically, before refrigeration, dry pasta was considered a long storage food.
A little known fact is that even pasta made with eggs, if dried completely, and kept in low humidity environment, can be stored for long periods of time.
100% whole wheat pasta contains more fiber which causes it to be digested slower than regular pasta, causing a measurably higher calorie intake.
In the 1300s, Pope Benedict XII set strict quality standards for pasta.
The word pasta means "paste" in Italian, referring to the paste of water and flour created when making pasta.
The longest single strand of pasta measured 12,388’ 5” and was achieved by Lawson Inc. in Tokyo , Japan, on 20 October 2010.
The world’s record for the most pasta consumed was broken by Matt Stonie, of hot-dog eating fame. He consumed 10 pounds in 8 minutes.
The first American pasta factory was opened in Brooklyn, New York, in 1848, by Antoine Zerega. He used a horse to power his machinery and dried the pasta on the roof.
One cup of cooked spaghetti contains 200 calories, 40 grams of carbs, and less than one gram of total fat.
There is no cholesterol in pasta made with water.
Linguini means "little tongue" and Vermicelli means "little worms". Many pasta names have meanings to describe their shape.
Couscous is a type of pasta.

Cooking and Making Pasta

To cook 1 pound of pasta, you should boil at least 1 gallon of water. Most Americans don't use enough water when cooking pasta.
When cooking pasta in water, use the largest pot you have or your pasta might become a slimy, starchy mess.
You need to add sea salt to pasta water when cooking—enough to give the water the taste of the sea. A good handful will add lots of flavor to your pasta.
Adding salt also makes water boil faster.
Pasta should be added only after the water has come to a rapid boil.
Pasta can actually be “cooked” by soaking in warm water: Salt the water and stir. Add pasta let sit for 30 minutes, until the pasta rehydrates. This method is best to hydrate small pasta shapes intended to be added to soups.
You can use regular lasagna noodles in the same way as “no boil” noodles. Just be sure there is enough moisture covering the pasta when assembling your lasagna casserole.
Never add oil to pasta water, no matter what your mother told you. The oil would prevent sauces from sticking to pasta.
To prevent any pasta from sticking together, after adding the pasta to the boiling water, give the pasta and water a couple of swirls with a wooden spoon.
To cook spaghetti, do not break in half, but add to the large pot of boiling water in a fan like motion. Within seconds, use a wooden spoon or tongs to gently push the spaghetti strands down into the water. Give a couple of stirs to the water.
If you have average sized hands and grip spaghetti between your thumb and forefinger (making a circle about 1-1/4” across), that should give you enough for two servings.
Cover your pasta pot with a lid left 1-2” open along one side to prevent it boiling over.
To prevent spill-overs, place a large wooden spoon across one side of the pot, then rest the lid on top.
Pasta should be cooked al dente (to the tooth). You can test a piece of pasta by biting into it. If you still see a little white center and there still a resistance in the pasta when bitten, it is done.
Undercook pasta slightly when making a recipe that requires adding pasta to a sauté pan to finish cooking in the sauce. The liquids of the sauce will finish cooking the pasta and add flavor to it.
Store bought, dried pasta cooks in 8-12 minutes. Wheat or spinach pasta takes longer. Fresh pasta cooks quickly within 3-4 minutes.
When finishing your pasta along with a sauce in a sauté pan, add 2-3 tablespoons of the pasta cooking water to the pan. The starchy water will help the sauce thicken.
You can drain pasta with a spider or scolapasta (colander), but don’t rinse it. Rinsing would remove starch which helps sauces stick to your pasta.
Sauces should be tossed with the pasta (allowing the sauce to be soaked up by the pasta) instead of serving naked pasta with sauce sitting on top.
Anyone can make fresh pasta without a machine: Place the flour on a work surface in a volcano shaped mound. You can then make a basin in the middle of the volcano to contain eggs or water. You then use hands or a fork to mix the flour into the wet ingredients until a rough dough is formed. Knead the dough until smooth for 5-10 minutes, then roll or shape your pasta.
Fresh pasta can be made with a variety, or even a mix of flours: durum semolina, finely-milled 00 flour, all-purpose flour, buckwheat flour, wheat flour, etc. Never use bread flour to make pasta as it contains too much protein and creates too much gluten.
Fresh pasta can be laid out on sheet pans lined with cotton kitchen towels, lightly dusted with flour or corn meal, then dried for later use.
Fresh pasta, after dried, can be frozen, spread apart on sheet pans, then when rock hard, bagged for future use.
The secret to making ravioli that don’t explode when boiled is making sure that there are no air pockets in with the filling when you seal them.
Frozen, “fresh” pasta can be stored in a freezer for 3 months.
Making fresh pasta is easy to do, even by hand. You can learn to make many traditional shapes with nothing more than your hands, fingers, a rolling pin, a bench scraper and a long knife.
If a pasta dough is well worked, smooth then rested, it should not give any problems or stick when run through a pasta machine.
Fresh pasta dough should be covered and rested for one hour before running through a pasta machine.
A batch of pasta dough can be divided into 4 equal pieces, then roughly shaped and rolled into ¼” thick rectangles, ready for rolling through a pasta machine.
Pasta machines typically have numbered settings, from thickest to thinnest. You start rolling, twice on each number, from thickest to the thinnest setting that matches the type of pasta you are making. Not all pasta types should be paper thin, as a slightly thicker pasta holds heavier sauces better.
When using a pasta machine (the roller type), never clean it with water. Just lightly brush off any residue. If your pasta dough is made correctly, it will not be sticky or floury. If it feels sticky, then your pasta dough needs a little more flour, not your pasta machine.
You don’t need a machine or roller to make pasta. You can use a rolling pin to flatten your pasta and then cut your shapes with a pasta cutting roller or a knife. You can cut strips of fettuccine, squares for making ravioli or tortellini, or snakes cut into 2” long pieces for making dumpling shapes, like cavatelli.
Before cooking fresh pasta, you should dry it for at least 30 minutes.
Dust freshly made pasta with a bit of flour, then lay out in one layer on sheet pans to dry.
For long pasta, like fettuccini or spaghetti, flour the pasta and drop into loose “nests” on a sheet pan to dry.
Fresh pasta can be totally dried in 24 hours for longer storage.
Fresh pasta, after an initial drying, can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
After totally drying fresh pasta on sheet pans, they can be placed into a freezer until rock hard, then stored in plastic bags for use within 2-3 months.
Don't place sauces on top of naked pasta, instead, either finish the pasta in the saucepan or mix the sauce with the pasta in a large pasta bowl.
Which pasta to use for a recipe depends on the type of sauce:
1. Tubular shapes like penne and ziti are perfect with hearty, thick sauces like ragu.
2. Pasta with ridges, called rigate, grip sauce even better.
3. Wide, flat pastas like pappardelle are ideal for holding creamy sauces.
4. Long, round pastas like spaghetti are best with oil or tomato sauces, which coat each strand evenly.
5. Chunky vegetable or meaty sauces are best paired with larger shapes that have cups or large cavities to grip the large particles.