Common to every household and a staple diet to Italians across the globe, pasta has been around for over 1000 years. From traditional cooking techniques of handmade pasta to revealing secrets of AQUA Forte’s pasta-making, here are 8 interesting facts about pasta you probably didn’t know.
Celebrate World Pasta Day on the 25 th of October! Make a reservation at AQUA Forte to enjoy authentic Italian cuisine on this special day. Embark on a culinary journey of Italy as our master chefs mix traditional recipes with special ingredients imported from Italy, complemented with a glass of premium Italian wine; to complete your World Pasta Day celebrations!
Pasta di Gragnano is known to be the best in the world and that’s exactly why we use it to create our Spaghettoni alla Carbonara. While Northern Italy is famous for fresh pasta like tagliatelle and ravioli, Southern Italy is the unrivalled champion of dried pasta, including of course spaghetti. Thanks to its strategic position in the Gulf of Naples, Gragnano is at the heart of its production. Gragnano’s people have been able to produce and dry pasta outdoor for over 1,000 years because of the favourable climate. This pasta is such an integral part of the town’s identity that it is referred to as the “Oro di Gragnano” – the gold of Gragnano. There’s an important difference between Pasta di Gragnano and just any other pasta. The flavours of the wheat shine through and the structure of the pasta has a real bite to it, making it the star of the dish instead of a mere accompaniment used to scoop up the sauce.
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Pasta is a staple in every household in Italy, where the average Italian consumes about 26kg of pasta a year! However, each pasta meal is cooked in a different way using one of the many types and shapes of pasta. A typical portion of pasta only weighs around 90 grams.
Adding chicken to your pasta is never heard of in Italy and an authentic Italian restaurant will never serve you a dish combining the two, although is very common in many fake “italian” restaurants around the world. The real reason is actually unknown but it is believed that is mainly because ancient Romans considered poultry common for low-ranked workers and servants. Chicken is in fact not very common at all in Italian cuisine and it will never be found in real Italian pizza and pasta recipes.
Head Chef Roberto revealed that the secret to making authentic fresh pasta is based on four key factors. The quality of the durum semolina flour (which we import from Italy), the proportion between durum and soft flour in the mix, the way the pasta is worked, and the resting time are what makes the difference and allow our chefs at AQUA Forte to prepare authentic, fresh, homemade pasta.
Giacomo Casanova, Italy’s heartthrob was so infatuated by pasta, that he actually wrote a poem about it after encountering a ‘macaroni academy’ during his travels. He eventually became known as the ‘Prince of Macaroni’ as he consumed a large quantity of pasta at a club picnic.
There are approximately 600 shapes of pasta, and most of them have rather uncommon, strange names, that might make you think twice, but they mostly simply refer to the shape of the different types of pasta. Spaghetti translates to strings, while vermicelli to small worms, farfalle to butterflies, linguine to little tongues and ravioli to little turnips.
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The carbohydrates that are present in pasta increases the production of serotonin in the body, which means that enjoying a scrumptious meal of authentic Italian pasta will leave you feeling not just satisfied, but completely happy!
