Pasta

Pasta is a food made from wheat flour and water, sometimes with eggs added. The dough is either rolled out or shaped in a specific form, then dried or cooked immediately. It is cooked in boiling water and is commonly served with sauce, oil, meat, or vegetables.

Pasta is among the best-known foods of Italy, but it is used worldwide. In Somalia it is a common daily food in households and restaurants, usually eaten with meat sauce or chicken and bananas.

Ingredients and preparation

The most common dried pasta sold in stores is usually made from hard wheat flour (durum), which gives the pasta enough firmness to hold its shape when cooked. The dough is pushed through a press (extruder) to create various shapes: tubes, strands, or shell forms. It is then dried so it keeps for a long time.

Types

There are hundreds of shapes with different names. Common ones include spaghetti (long thin strands), macaroni (small tubes), penne (tubes cut at an angle), fettuccine (wide ribbons), and lasagne (flat sheets layered in cooking). The shape affects how sauce clings to the pasta.

History

Dough foods made from wheat flour existed in several regions of Europe and Asia many centuries ago. Italy, particularly the south and Sicily, became the center of dried pasta production from the Middle Ages onward. In the 19th and 20th centuries, factory machinery and Italian emigration spread pasta to the Americas and elsewhere.