367. Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food by Silvano Serventi & Francoise Sabban

 

BOOK REVIEW: Pasta - The Story of a Universal Food by Silvano Serventi & Francoise Sabban

Today, at any restaurant and even food court stall, we come across pasta as one of the dishes available. We all have our personal favorites like mac 'n' cheese, spaghetti carbonara and lasagne. But did you know the long journey of the various types of pasta from its conception to its introduction to the world? This book will enlighten you of this and more.

Ranging from the imperial palaces of ancient China and the bakeries of 14th century Genoa and Naples all the way to the restaurant kitchens of today, this book tells a story that will forever change the way you look at your next plate of vermicelli.

Pasta has become a ubiquitous food, present in regional diets around the world and available in a host of shapes, sizes, textures and tastes. Yet, although it has become a mass-produced commodity, it remains uniquely adaptable to innumerable recipes and individual creativity. This book shows that this enormously popular food has resulted from a lengthy process of cultural construction and widely diverse knowledge, skills and techniques.

Many myths are intertwined with the history of pasta, particularly the idea that Marco Polo brought pasta back from China and introduced it to Europe. That story, concocted in the early 20th century by the trade magazine Macaroni Journal, is just one of many fictions unmasked here. 

The true homelands of pasta have been China and Italy. Each gave rise to different but complementary culinary traditions that have spread throughout the world. From China has come pasta made with soft wheat flour. Pastasciutta, the Italian style of pasta, is generally made with durum wheat semolina.

The history of these traditions, told here in fascinating detail, is interwoven with the legacies of expanding and contracting empires, the growth of mercantilist guilds and mass industrialization, and the rise of food as an art form. 

Whether you are interested in the origins of lasagne, the strange genesis of the Chinese pasta bing, or the mystique of the most magnificent pasta of all, the timbalo, this is the book for you.