Word: pasta
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...there is no doubt about the natural superiority of pasta, there are several questions that haunt the addict who dreams of little else. What pasta shapes go best with which sauces? Is the rich meatiness of a beef-and-tomato sauce better appreciated when wound into the long, sturdy strands of bucatini or when filling the cavities of the convoluted lumache, or snail shell? Have any shapes become so unfashionable that they are being phased out? What will the newly increased U.S. tariff (from less than 1% of value to 40%) do to the price of imported pasta? And, finally...
...best source for answers, and Mecca to a pasta devotee, is a pastificio, or pasta factory, such as Gerardo di Nola in Castellammare di Stabia, about a 40-minute drive south of Naples. One of Italy's largest producers of premium pasta, it is a bright and airy factory where the starchy aroma suggests tons of boiling pasta. The current president, Gerardo Ronza, is a grandnephew of Gerardo di Nola, who founded the company in 1870. A slender, precise man who lives in an antiques-filled apartment over the factory, Ronza savors the lore and history of his product. Everything...
...process begins in huge vats, where water is mixed with the coarse- grained durum wheatmeal called semolina that gives Italian pasta its uniquely toothsome texture and flavor. The resultant crumbly paste is then extruded through bronze bar molds pierced with openings to produce the desired shape. For the long strands of pasta that have holes in the center (so they will cook more evenly), the paste is forced through ring-shaped openings around center cores that make the final product hollow...
Flat noodles like lasagne are forced between metal rollers that approximate the action of a rolling pin. Cut in proper lengths, pasta dries in warmers for seven hours and is then cooled before being packed in printed cellophane bags. The only additions to the basic semolina and water blend are vitamin enrichments required in certain states, including New York, California and Connecticut. (They are, in fact, added to all pasta shipped...
...Italians, the meat or fish and the cheese we add are enrichment enough," Ronza says. "Spaghetti is still our No. 1 seller, but short pasta is becoming more popular. Some cooks still prefer to break long thick pasta such as ziti or the corkscrew fusilli into small pieces as they drop them into boiling salted water, but most people like them precut...