No! Not another article about Italy and pasta, I hear you crying. Worry not, this time we’re going to tackle the “pasta issue” from an entirely different angle. Many angles in fact, as we’ll find out some little known historical, culinary and scientific - yes, scientific - curiosities about our nation’s most versatile kitchen staple.
In truth, pasta can be rather mysterious. Take its origins for example: Italian children, yours truly included, was told in school that one of the many wonders Marco Polo brought back from China was spaghetti. In my own little child’s imagination, Polo returned to Venice with a plate of pasta al pomodoro like the one my grandma would make, an idea I would find quite amusing indeed.
