World Pasta Day
As World Pasta Day is on 25th October, what better way to celebrate than with a joke?
Did you hear about the sad death of the Italian chef? He ran out of thyme and pasta way.
Fortunately, pasta goes down far better than our humour and with 600 different types of pasta there’s surely at least one to satisfy every taste.
We’ve often wondered why pasta is shaped like bow ties or seashells or pillows or various other shapes – well apparently it’s all to do with the variety of dishes, each shape designed to best cling on to the delicious sauce or fellow ingredients when scooped into the mouth.
Fresh pasta is made from flour, egg, water, and salt, pressed into sheets and then cut by hand to make spaghetti strands.
Durum wheat can be added to the dough, the moisture removed, and the pasta forced through holes in metal plates to form the various shapes. The resulting dry pasta can then be stored and transported.
And Italian pasta has travelled a great deal since it first emerged there some 800 years ago but received possibly its biggest boost around the turn of the 19th century when Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, came across it.
Following the War of Independence, Jefferson spent several years in Europe as ambassador for the newly constituted United States of America. He was so taken by pasta – known as macaroni – he made sketches and detailed notes about its preparation and on returning to the States commissioned a pasta making machine, the first in the US.
Undeterred by the contraption’s failure to produce the delicious pasta he remembered, Jefferson began importing macaroni and parmesan and during his time as third President of the US served macaroni pie at a state dinner.
Around the same time cookbooks in England started featuring the combination of macaroni and cheddar cheese sauce. Simultaneously, on both sides of the Atlantic the mac and cheese was born.
Today you don’t have to go to the trouble of importing a pasta making machine if you want to enjoy this classic dish – just try one of the Real Soup Company’s Mac ‘n Cheese pots. Part of our grab and go range, they are perfect for a tasty and nutritious lunch.
And our soup range includes another option for World Pasta Day (or anytime), the classic minestrone featuring spaghetti, herbs, and vegetables suitable for vegans and anyone who needs warming up – or to share with a friend if you’re feeling cannelloni.
We’ll get our coats!
