Pasta, Glorious Pasta

Amorini (little cupids), canneroni (big reeds), cappelli di prete (priests’ hats), cappelli pagliaccio (clown’s hats), conchigliette (little shells), ‘creste di gallo (cocks’ combs), elettrict rigatti (grooved electric ones), farfallette and farfalloni (little and big butterflies), fidelini (little faithful ones), fusilli (spindles), lancette (little spears), lasagne (probably from the Latin lasanum, a pot, described in the dictionaries as “the container for the contained”), linguine (little tongues), lwmache, lumachine, lumacone (snails, little snails and big snails), Margherite (after a now dead Italian queen), are but a few of the hundred-odd names the Italians give to the various offspring of the pasta family. Their cozy quality shows that the Italians and their pasta are indeed close. A misty and spurious legend has it that Marco Polo, who must have > traveled with the kitchen sink as well, brought macaroni back from China, where it was well known.

But Professor Giuseppe Prezzolini, a learned lecturer at Columbia, says that macaroni was well enough known in Italy around 1200 A.D. and he quotes a document, the “Life of the Blessed Hermit William,” which says: “He invited William to dinner, and served macaroni.” The word “macaroni” is also obscure. It may come from the Greek word makario which means blessed, but only in reference to the dead, and makaria, food eaten in honor of the dead. As you can see, all of this is not only obscure, but very moot as well. Professor Prezzolini thinks that macaroni comes from the Mediterranean, and it is certain that the art of making and eating it has flowered for centuries in Italy. Poets wrote about macaroni; Boccaccio, in the Decameron, describes an idyllic country where no one works and all things are free, with a mountain of grated Parmesan cheese in the middle of it. On top of this mountain there are people who do nothing else but make macaroni, which they cook in capon broth and throw down to all who want it. Goldoni, the playwright, in his memoirs describes the blissful experience of tossing down three platefuls of the stuff and the Neapolitans have the proverb: “He fell into it like macaroni into the cheese,” which is not surprising since Naples has been the macaroni capital of Italy since the seventeenth century. All pasta is a most marvelous food stretcher, and the Italians are past masters of serving it with meat, fish, egg or vegetable sauces. They love it, as we all know, and have for centuries—except for a time in the Thirties, when Futurismo swept the country. Futurismo, or the thing of the future (a better future of course, or so people thought), embraced all aspects of life in its zeal to get Italy away from the dead past and make it into a super modern country. Marinetti, a poet and chief prophet of Futurismo, was a very intelligent man who liked to tease. The reform of the Italian diet was one of his projects, and he declared war upon spaghetti. “Futurist cooking,” he said, “will be liberated from the ancient obsession of weight and volume, and one of its principal aims will be the abolition of pastasciutta [all pasta dishes]. Pastasciutta, however pleasing to the palate, is an obsolete food; it is heavy, brutalizing and gross; its nutritive qualities are deceptive, it induces sloth . . . and pessimism.” Marinetti’s complete futurist cuisine was something that would make even the hippies sit up. He combined ingredients for their shock value, such as cooked salami drenched in hot black coffee flavored with eau de cologne. All senses were to enjoy a meal; perfume was to be sprayed over the diners (warmed, so as not to chill the bald). The diners were also to stroke materials harmonizing with the meal—velvet or silk or steel —with one hand while the other held the fork. Mussolini liked Mlarinetti, and evolved a campaign to improve the Italians in the bleak image of the future. No more German music or French food, no more alien words like sandwich (the Italian was traidue, between the two) and rice, which grows in Italy, rather than spaghetti made with imported wheat. Vast sums were spent on the campagna del riso, but the idea never took. The Northern Italians like their rice anyway, but all the others stuck by their pasta. Pasta is ideal for the one hot meal at least everybody should eat in summer. A diet of nothing but cold foods is bad for the human frame, and it also induces melancholia; witness the hot food rushed to soldiers in the field. Pasta, all of it, is quick and easy to cook and to serve, and cheap as well, allowing one to put the saved money into excesses more amusing than family meals. Since pasta is a carrier, let it carry what you like to eat in the way of sauces. But the pasta must not be overcooked; it should be a bit chewy, what the Italians call al dente. It must be cooked in lots and lots of fast boiling salted water, quickly drained, never, never rinsed, eaten at once and never reheated on hot plates so that it will stay hot. I still think the best of all pasta dishes is all’ Inglese, that is, pasta with plenty of butter and freshly grated Parmesan. There is a world of difference in the Parmesan that is freshly grated, and the grating is no large chore. The cheese in hunks can be bought at all cheese stores and even in supermarkets, and a pound or so in the refrigerator is Icvely security. For a dish of good, hot pasta, richly buttered and spread with masses of cheese, will cure any melancholy, and besides, the children will eat it without tears.

NH

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Nika Hazelton

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Amorini (little cupids), canneroni (big reeds), cappelli di prete (priests’ hats), cappelli pagliaccio (clown’s hats), conchigliette (little shells), ‘creste di gallo (cocks’ combs), elettrict rigatti (grooved electric ones), farfallette and farfalloni (little and big butterflies), fidelini (little faithful ones), fusilli (spindles), lancette (little spears), lasagne (probably from the Latin lasanum, a pot, described in the dictionaries as “the container for the contained”), linguine (little tongues), lwmache, lumachine, lumacone (snails, little snails and big snails), Margherite (after a now dead Italian queen), are but a few of the hundred-odd names the Italians give to the various offspring of the pasta family. Their cozy quality shows that the Italians and their pasta are indeed close. A misty and spurious legend has it that Marco Polo, who must have > traveled with the kitchen sink as well, brought macaroni back from China, where it was well known.

But Professor Giuseppe Prezzolini, a learned lecturer at Columbia, says that macaroni was well enough known in Italy around 1200 A.D. and he quotes a document, the “Life of the Blessed Hermit William,” which says: “He invited William to dinner, and served macaroni.” The word “macaroni” is also obscure. It may come from the Greek word makario which means blessed, but only in reference to the dead, and makaria, food eaten in honor of the dead. As you can see, all of this is not only obscure, but very moot as well. Professor Prezzolini thinks that macaroni comes from the Mediterranean, and it is certain that the art of making and eating it has flowered for centuries in Italy. Poets wrote about macaroni; Boccaccio, in the Decameron, describes an idyllic country where no one works and all things are free, with a mountain of grated Parmesan cheese in the middle of it. On top of this mountain there are people who do nothing else but make macaroni, which they cook in capon broth and throw down to all who want it. Goldoni, the playwright, in his memoirs describes the blissful experience of tossing down three platefuls of the stuff and the Neapolitans have the proverb: “He fell into it like macaroni into the cheese,” which is not surprising since Naples has been the macaroni capital of Italy since the seventeenth century. All pasta is a most marvelous food stretcher, and the Italians are past masters of serving it with meat, fish, egg or vegetable sauces. They love it, as we all know, and have for centuries—except for a time in the Thirties, when Futurismo swept the country. Futurismo, or the thing of the future (a better future of course, or so people thought), embraced all aspects of life in its zeal to get Italy away from the dead past and make it into a super modern country. Marinetti, a poet and chief prophet of Futurismo, was a very intelligent man who liked to tease. The reform of the Italian diet was one of his projects, and he declared war upon spaghetti. “Futurist cooking,” he said, “will be liberated from the ancient obsession of weight and volume, and one of its principal aims will be the abolition of pastasciutta [all pasta dishes]. Pastasciutta, however pleasing to the palate, is an obsolete food; it is heavy, brutalizing and gross; its nutritive qualities are deceptive, it induces sloth . . . and pessimism.” Marinetti’s complete futurist cuisine was something that would make even the hippies sit up. He combined ingredients for their shock value, such as cooked salami drenched in hot black coffee flavored with eau de cologne. All senses were to enjoy a meal; perfume was to be sprayed over the diners (warmed, so as not to chill the bald). The diners were also to stroke materials harmonizing with the meal—velvet or silk or steel —with one hand while the other held the fork. Mussolini liked Mlarinetti, and evolved a campaign to improve the Italians in the bleak image of the future. No more German music or French food, no more alien words like sandwich (the Italian was traidue, between the two) and rice, which grows in Italy, rather than spaghetti made with imported wheat. Vast sums were spent on the campagna del riso, but the idea never took. The Northern Italians like their rice anyway, but all the others stuck by their pasta. Pasta is ideal for the one hot meal at least everybody should eat in summer. A diet of nothing but cold foods is bad for the human frame, and it also induces melancholia; witness the hot food rushed to soldiers in the field. Pasta, all of it, is quick and easy to cook and to serve, and cheap as well, allowing one to put the saved money into excesses more amusing than family meals. Since pasta is a carrier, let it carry what you like to eat in the way of sauces. But the pasta must not be overcooked; it should be a bit chewy, what the Italians call al dente. It must be cooked in lots and lots of fast boiling salted water, quickly drained, never, never rinsed, eaten at once and never reheated on hot plates so that it will stay hot. I still think the best of all pasta dishes is all’ Inglese, that is, pasta with plenty of butter and freshly grated Parmesan. There is a world of difference in the Parmesan that is freshly grated, and the grating is no large chore. The cheese in hunks can be bought at all cheese stores and even in supermarkets, and a pound or so in the refrigerator is Icvely security. For a dish of good, hot pasta, richly buttered and spread with masses of cheese, will cure any melancholy, and besides, the children will eat it without tears.