All About Pasta
About Pasta
- It means "dough" in Italian.
- The most familiar legend of Marco Polo importing pasta from China is actually not so true and it was introduced by Arabs during their conquest of Sicily. China was indeed the first country to develop the art of noodle marking, but there were pastas in the Mediterranean world long before Marco Polo. The earliest indications of pasta-like preparations come in the 6th century. A 9th century Syrian text gives semolina dough shaped into strings and dried.
- The postmedieval evolution of pasta took place largely in Italy. Pasta makers formed guilds and made fresh types from soft wheat flour throughout Italy, dried types from durum semolina in the south and in Sicily.
- There are about 350 different shapes of pasta in both dried and fresh form.
- Common pasta sauces in Northern Italy include pesto and ragù alla bolognese; in Central Italy, simple tomato sauce, amatriciana and carbonara, and in Southern Italy, spicy tomato, garlic, and olive oil based sauces, often paired with fresh vegetables or seafood.
from "On Food and Cooking - The science and lore of the kitchen" by Harold McGee; Wikipedia
Basic plain pasta dough recipe
Pasta with anchovies, currants, fennel and pine nuts
Red pepper and pancetta ravioli with rainbow chard sauce recipe
Cinnamon-pancetta carbonara by Giada De Laurentiis
Artichoke harts and prochutto linguini with crispy basil
