I can’t recall exactly when I gave up trying to make spaghetti that tasted like my mother’s. No matter my efforts, I could never replicate the nuance of flavors and finally accepted the fact. Her spaghetti, and its irresistible aroma, is something I’ll always think of when visions of Mama’s kitchen come to mind. Which brings us to pasta. October is National Pasta Month. And I don’t think it’s only because Christopher Columbus, born in October, was allegedly a famous pastaphile.
We associate pasta with Italy, of course, but scholars credit the Chinese with making pasta from rice flour as early 3,000 B.C. Pasta actually traveled from China to Arabia to Italy.
Fast forward to the late 1700s. After serving as minister to France, Thomas Jefferson returned to America with crates of “maccheroni” and a pasta-making machine (which he proceeded to redesign, according to thenibble.com’s history of pasta). The National Pasta Association credits a later Frenchman with establishing the United State’s first pasta factory, in Brooklyn in 1848. America’s love affair with the food was up and running.
In this country, average pasta consumption is about 20 pounds per year per person, according to pastafits.org. That makes it the sixth highest food per capita. But we’re amateurs compared to Italy, where the average person annually eats more than 60 pounds.
So, what is it about these noodles typically made from an unleavened dough of durum wheat? Well, it comes in a wide variety of shapes and colors and is versatile enough to be an entree or a salad. It can be served hot or cold, prepared by hand or food processor. It can be enjoyed on any budget. Dry pasta can be stored for long periods. Sauces in a myriad of tastes, textures and hues enhance the pasta experience. And, it’s a good source of complex carbohydrates and also contains protein, fiber and other nutrients.
Dinnertime trap?
Pasta can become such a go-to for busy households juggling jobs, homework, picky kids and dwindling energy that it actually can become a dinnertime trap, says Alison Ladman, food writer for the Associated Press.
“You discover two or three easy pasta dishes that somehow can come together in the midst of all that chaos and that everyone — or at least most of your family — will actually eat. And once you find those dishes, you soon find yourself in the pasta trap. You almost never make any other pasta dish.”
Ladman springs the trap with 10 fresh ideas for pasta. None are complicated and are versatile enough to adapt to whatever is on hand. All can be made with whatever pasta size or shape you’ve got. And maybe, just maybe, one of them will re-boot my search for the elusive flavor combination my mother found years ago.
10 fresh ways to serve pasta
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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