Pasta
Pasta is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Pasta was originally only made with durum, although the definition has been expanded to include alternatives for a gluten-free diet, such as rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils. Pasta is believed to have developed independently in Italy and is a staple food of Italian cuisine, with evidence of Etruscans making pasta as early as 400 BCE in Italy.
Pastas are divided into two broad categories: dried and fresh. Most dried pasta is produced commercially via an extrusion process, although it can be produced at home. Fresh pasta is traditionally produced by hand, sometimes with the aid of simple machines. Fresh pastas available in grocery stores are produced commercially by large-scale machines.
Both dried and fresh pastas come in a number of shapes and varieties, with 310 specific forms known by over 1,300 documented names. In Italy, the names of specific pasta shapes or types often vary by locale. For example, the pasta form cavatelli is known by 28 different names depending upon the town and region. Common forms of pasta include long and short shapes, tubes, flat shapes or sheets, miniature shapes for soup, those meant to be filled or stuffed, and specialty or decorative shapes.
As a category in Italian cuisine, both fresh and dried pastas are classically used in one of three kinds of prepared dishes: as pasta asciutta, cooked pasta is plated and served with a complementary sauce or condiment; a second classification of pasta dishes is pasta in brodo, in which the pasta is part of a soup-type dish. A third category is pasta al forno, in which the pasta is incorporated into a dish that is subsequently baked in the oven. Pasta dishes are generally simple, but individual dishes vary in preparation. Some pasta dishes are served as a small first course or for light lunches, such as pasta salads. Other dishes may be portioned larger and used for dinner. Pasta sauces similarly may vary in taste, color and texture.
In terms of nutrition, cooked plain pasta is 31% carbohydrates, 6% protein and is low in fat, with moderate amounts of manganese, but pasta generally has low micronutrient content. Pasta may be enriched or fortified, or made from whole grains.
Etymology
Earliest appearances in the English language are in the 1830s; the word pasta comes from Italian pasta, in turn from Latin pasta, latinisation of the.History
Evidence of Etruscans making pasta dates back to 400 BCE. The first concrete information on pasta products in Italy dates to the 13th or 14th centuries. In the 1st-century writings of Horace, lagana were fine sheets of fried dough and were an everyday foodstuff. Writing in the 2nd century, Athenaeus of Naucratis provides a recipe for lagana which he attributes to the 1st-century Chrysippus of Tyana: sheets of dough made of wheat flour and the juice of crushed lettuce, then flavored with spices and deep-fried in oil. An early 5th-century cookbook describes a dish called lagana that consisted of layers of dough with meat stuffing, an ancestor of modern-day lasagna. However, the method of cooking these sheets of dough does not correspond to the modern definition of either a fresh or dry pasta product, which only had similar basic ingredients and perhaps the shape.Historians have noted several lexical milestones relevant to pasta, none of which changes these basic characteristics. For example, the works of the 2nd-century Greek physician Galen mention, homogeneous compounds made of flour and water. The Jerusalem Talmud records that, a kind of boiled dough, was common in Palestine from the 3rd to 5th centuries. A dictionary compiled by the 9th-century Arab physician and lexicographer Isho bar Ali defines, the Arabic cognate, as string-like shapes made of semolina and dried before cooking.
The geographical text of Muhammad al-Idrisi, compiled for the Norman king of Sicily Roger II in 1154, mentions manufactured and exported from Norman Sicily:
One form of with a long history is lagana, which in Latin refers to thin sheets of dough, and gave rise to the Italian lasagna.
There is a legend that Marco Polo imported pasta from China. Rustichello da Pisa writes in his Travels that Marco Polo described a food similar to lagana. The way pasta reached Europe is unknown, however there are many theories, Jeffrey Steingarten asserts that Moors introduced pasta in the Emirate of Sicily in the 9th century, mentioning also that traces of pasta have been found in ancient Greece and that Jane Grigson believed the Marco Polo story to have originated in the 1920s or 1930s in an advertisement for a Canadian spaghetti company.
Food historians estimate that the dish probably took hold in Italy as a result of extensive Mediterranean trading in the Middle Ages. From the 13th century, references to pasta dishes crop up with increasing frequency across the Italian peninsula. In the 14th-century writer Boccaccio's collection of earthy tales, The Decameron, he recounts a mouthwatering fantasy concerning a mountain of Parmesan cheese down which pasta chefs roll macaroni and ravioli to gluttons waiting below.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, dried pasta became popular for its easy storage. This allowed people to store pasta on ships when exploring the New World. A century later, pasta was present around the globe during the voyages of discovery.
Although tomatoes were introduced to Italy in the 16th century and incorporated in Italian cuisine in the 17th century, description of the first Italian tomato sauces dates from the late 18th century: the first written record of pasta with tomato sauce can be found in the 1790 cookbook L'Apicio Moderno by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi.
History of manufacturing
At the beginning of the 17th century, Naples had rudimentary machines for producing pasta, later establishing the kneading machine and press, making pasta manufacturing cost-effective. In 1740, a license for the first pasta factory was issued in Venice. During the 1800s, watermills and stone grinders were used to separate semolina from the bran, initiating expansion of the pasta market. In 1859, Joseph Topits founded Hungary's first pasta factory, in the city of Pest, which worked with steam machines; it was one of the first pasta factories in Central Europe. By 1867, Buitoni Company in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, was an established pasta manufacturer. During the early 1900s, artificial drying and extrusion processes enabled greater variety of pasta preparation and larger volumes for export, beginning a period called "The Industry of Pasta". In 1884, the Zátka Brothers's plant in Boršov nad Vltavou was founded, making it Bohemia's first pasta factory.In modern times
The art of pasta making and the devotion to the food as a whole has evolved since pasta was first conceptualized. In 2008, it was estimated that Italians ate over of pasta per person, per year, easily beating Americans, who ate about per person. As the individual consumption of pasta exceeds the average production of wheat in the country, Italy frequently imports wheat for pasta making. In contemporary society, pasta is ubiquitous and there is a variety of types in local supermarkets, in many countries. With the worldwide demand for this staple food, pasta is now largely mass-produced in factories and only a tiny proportion is crafted by hand.Ingredients and preparation
Since at least the time of Cato's De Agri Cultura, basic pasta dough has been made mostly of wheat flour or semolina, with durum wheat used predominantly in the south and soft wheat in the north of Italy. Regionally other grains have been used, including those from barley, buckwheat, rye, rice and maize, as well as chestnut and chickpea flours. Liquid, often in the form of eggs, is used to turn the flour into a dough.To address the needs of people affected by gluten-related disorders, some recipes use rice or maize for making pasta. Grain flours may also be supplemented with cooked potatoes.
Other additions to the basic flour-liquid mixture may include vegetable purees such as spinach or tomato, mushrooms, cheeses, herbs, spices and other seasonings. While pastas are, most typically, made from unleavened doughs, at least nine different pasta forms are known to use yeast-raised doughs.
Additives in dried, commercially sold pasta include vitamins and minerals that are lost from the durum wheat endosperm during milling. They are added back to the semolina flour once it is ground, creating enriched flour. Micronutrients added may include niacin, riboflavin, folate, thiamine and ferrous iron.
Varieties
Fresh
Fresh pasta is usually locally made with fresh ingredients unless it is destined to be shipped, in which case consideration is given to the spoilage rates of the desired ingredients such as eggs or herbs. Furthermore, fresh pasta is usually made with a mixture of eggs and all-purpose flour or "00" low-gluten flour. Since it contains eggs, it is more tender compared to dried pasta and only takes about half the time to cook. Delicate sauces are preferred for fresh pasta in order to let the pasta take front stage.Fresh pastas do not expand in size after cooking; therefore, of pasta are needed to serve four people generously. Fresh egg pasta is generally cut into strands of various widths and thicknesses depending on which pasta is to be made. It is best served with meat, cheese or vegetables to create filled pastas such as ravioli, tortellini and cannelloni. Fresh egg pasta is well known in the Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna regions of northern Italy. In this area, dough is only made out of egg yolk and flour resulting in a very refined flavor and texture. This pasta is often served simply with butter sauce and thinly sliced truffles that are native to this region. In other areas, such as Apulia, fresh pasta can be made without eggs. The only ingredients needed to make the pasta dough are semolina flour and water, which is often shaped into orecchiette or cavatelli. Fresh pasta for cavatelli is also popular in other places including Sicily. However, the dough is prepared differently: it is made of flour and ricotta cheese instead.