Fresh vs Dry

According to this site, there are some basic rules for a wheat/flour/water combo to be considered pasta. In fact, there is a law (580 of 04/07/67) = if there is such a thing, that common wheat flour is a no-no - pasta is made ONLY with durum wheat flour. Anything else is fraudulent. The standard measure for manufacturing dry pasta is 70/30 (flour -water).

My question is how is the quality judged? According to the site, and to Delia Smith, it's the origin of durum wheat. The better the source of wheat, the better the pasta. And then, a loving process of processing the hard wheat to semi-milled flour

". It began with growing the highest-quality hard wheat, and the name given to this specific type of wheat was durum, from the Latin, meaning hard. After the pasta maker had purchased exactly the right grain, the next important stage was finding the right miller to mill the grain to a certain precise specification – and not to a fine, powdery flour but to something called semolina, which, in Italian, means semi-milled and is quite unlike flour, as semolina is made up of tiny, coarse, corn-coloured granules with sharp edges."

Delia Smith of course tells us there's no point going crazy over fresh pasta. It doesnt necessarily tastes better. But then, she cautions, get the good quality dried stuff.

"The only fresh pastas I ever buy are ravioli, stuffed pasta shapes or lasagne sheets, which are, I think, of a far better quality than most of the dried packs. Once you taste quality dried pasta, it will be very hard for you to return to the industrially produced alternatives."

And what are good quality... D.S says look out for pasta di semola di grano duro – durum wheat semolina pasta. And of course her final words of wisdom

"The other modern misconception is to serve more sauce than pasta. Good pasta should be enjoyed for itself, with a small amount of concentrated sauce used to merely dress it."

I am now thinking of Chinese noodles. With the exception of long life noodles and vermicelli and some minor varieties, I think fresh noodles are good noodles. And nothing more warming than an over the top saucy noodle dish like laksa where the sauce/gravy and noodle go into a swimming whirl of flour/water nirvana

The Etruscan Evidence

Just when I thought the debate has ended, the thread has split into another argument that the italians had their own pasta by way of the Etruscan heritage- According to this site

"Well Marco Polo might have done amazing things on his journey but bringing pasta to Italy was not one of them, it was already there in Polo's time. There is some evidence of an Etrusco-Roman noodle made from the same durum wheat as modern pasta called "lagane" (origin of the modern word for lasagna)"

The author adds that the dish was baked, not boiled... so it's another group of invaders, the Arabs:

"Like so much of southern Italian life, the Arab invasions of the 8th century heavily influenced the regional cuisine and is the most accepted theory for the introduction of pasta."

Anyway read the discussion for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Just don't know who the author is though.

Tofu Pasta

OK, technically not pasta but such a nice idea.

This is a specialty of Yangzhou. Fine slice tofu into noodle width. Braise it with soya sauce and serve with chopped spring onions and coriander. Sounds pretty good.

The Chinese did it

Here's an excerpt of a column by Dr Karl S Kruszelnicki, on The Age magazine... (dated 5 Nov. 2005)

"The first known noodles date from about 2000 BC and were discovered last month by a team of archeologists in an area known as Lajia on the upper reaches of the Yellow River in north-western China....the prehistoric bowl of noodles was found, upside down, under three metres of floodplain sediment. Dr Houyuan Lu, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, wrote of the discovery 'The noodles were thin (about 0.3 centimetres in diameter), delicate, more than 50 centimetres in length and yellow in colour. They resemble the La-Mian noodle, a traditional noodle that is made by repeatedly pulling and stretching the dough by hand. "

The Italians, on the other hand, did not use or make pasta until Marco Polo made his trip to China. The earliest mention of pasta, according to Karl, is in Boccaccio's Decameron, written in 1353.

"In the region called Bengodi, where they tie the vines with sausages, there is a mountain made of grated parmesan cheese on which men work all day making macaroni and ravioli, boiling them in a capon broth"

So who made the first pasta? Karl says it's the Chinese.

But now my curiousity is piqued... tying vines with sausages?!!! Must read Decameron.

The Myth

So it's been said, Marco Polo went to China (also known as Cathay) brought the concept of pasta back to Italy. He also brought ice cream...how I'm not sure since it was a pretty long journey.

Anyway, it's a claim that's so often been refuted, mostly by the Italians - and I don't really want to take sides.

All I'm doing is to post the pro's and con's and my 2 piezta's worth of nonsense.