Tuesday, March 24, 2020

What's in your pantry? Pasta?


Supplies of many shelf-stable food have been in great demand during the current buying frenzy induced by the coronavirus pandemic. One commodity that's been in great demand is pasta. Obviously this makes sense -- everyone knows how to cook pasta! And it can be delicious if you have only a bit of olive oil and cheese and maybe garlic if you love garlic. Most people use a can or jar of ready-made pasta sauce or canned tomato products -- another commodity that's running low. Those of us who are ambitious look up more complicated recipes: there's no limit on the number of pasta recipes!

Like many people, here in Ann Arbor Len and I are definitely eating three meals a day at home during this emergency. So I've been thinking about food a lot, and I started looking at some of my more unusual books on pasta and its role in Italian food and history. Of course pasta is also popular in many other types of cuisine, such as many types of Asian noodles. Oh, and did Marco Polo bring pasta back from China? No, it was invented there long before his travels.


I have been looking in three books with three ways of looking at pasta. Pasta by Design presents mathematical equations and diagrams for the shapes. Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food by Serventi & Sabban is a scholarly history. The Encyclopedia of Pasta by Oretta Zanini de Vita is an alphabetical list of every type of pasta in Italy, even obsolete ones no longer made (blogged here).

So... there are many ways of looking at a noodle! Here are a few that I've thought about this week. When I blogged about beans earlier this week, I searched for recipes. This post approaches pasta in several entirely different ways.

Grocery Shelves

What the pasta section looked like before the hoarding started (my photo).
Pasta section of a supermarket in New York last week. Presumably the same
in many stores throughout the nation. (Photo: Washington Post)
Slowly, we are told, most food supplies will be returning to normal. Most shortages are a result of different demand as everyone switches to home cooking and wants to have emergency food on hand. Both shoppers and suppliers will adapt, or so they say. Pasta, according to what I've read, is one of the foods that will not remain scarce.

Looking at Cavatappi, an interesting pasta shape

Several pasta makers offer this interesting shape.
Here's a dish that I made with it last week: cavatappi with
ham, peas, herbs, and olive oil. 
The book Pasta by Design by George L. Legendre probably embodies the world's most unusual way of looking at pasta: the author derived mathematical equations to describe the shape of a number of noodle types. My family is full of mathematicians and experts at graphical programming. Last year, they introduced us to this book. I didn't understand the math very well, so I asked Len to make an animation of cavatappi based on the above page of the book.


You can see the rotating noodle in the video. 

Looking at Fusilli


Fusilli. I don't remember what was in this dish.
The beginning of the 3-page entry for Fusilli in the Encyclopedia of Pasta.
Fusilli page from Pasta by Design.
Of course I could think of other things to say about pasta, but you might get bored. Above all, I'm thinking of the current suffering of the Italian nation because of the enormous effect of the virus, and I'm hoping that the dire predictions about our own country will prove inaccurate.

This post and original photos by mae sander, © 2020 for mae food dot blogspot dot com.

15 comments:

  1. I love pasta and, fortunately, we had a fairly good stock before the panic buying took hold.

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  2. Noodles for mathematicians, that´s a great idea! My old boss would´ve loved that!
    We have some "noodle-fights" here occanally. I just don´t like fusilli, Hubby loves them.
    If you like, go on, you will not bore me with noodles!

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  3. Hello,

    I love pasta too, any shape will do. I did hear that Italian pasta is the best. We do have a few boxes of pasta in our pantry! Take care, stay well. Enjoy your day!

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  4. I had so much pasta discovered when I cleaned my cupboards before painting and I'm working my way down! Rick always has a lot too -- cyclists love their carbs. I'm sending this post to him. It is a good time to try some different versions of pasta recipes, no matter what the basic pasta is!

    Loved the photos and explanations. I see a couple of my favorites here!

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  5. HI Mae. I have become something of an accidental pasta snob. How did that happen? We stumbled into Cantoros in Livonia some years ago. What a place!!! It's at Haggerty and 5 Mile. They have more pasta than freshly baked breads and that is saying a lot. They have probably 15 brands on the shelf and every shape. I have found that even the "cheap" ones ($1.29 - $1.50) are better than what gets stocked most places, including Barilla. I haven't had the heart to spend more on noodles than steak but they have that too. And while you are there, pick up some Pecorino cheese and pancetta to make some Pasta All'Amatriciana made with Bucatini. It will be your best meal of the MONTH! Trader Joes has it charms but Cantoros is the real deal. Try it, you will love it. And while you are there, you may as well restock your wine stash. They have one of the better selections around. (Jeanie hijacked my computer but this is Rick writing.)

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  6. Hi Rick and Jeanie,
    Thanks for the information about the Italian deli/bakery/pasticceria. We aren’t going out for the moment but I hope better times soon will allow us to try it! ... mae

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  7. I could eat pasta every single day and never get tired of it. Love the stuff, and there are so many different ways to prepare it. And so many different shapes! Fun post -- thanks.

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  8. Pasta is great, but not to be found around here. I bought the last box of pasta-fusilli, at Jewel the other day. Great time for cleaning out the pantry! So many pasta books to peruse!

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  9. I have a lot of pasta, from long ago that I haven't eaten. Lots of soba, too, I'll get to that sooner.

    That first photo, I can smell early spring in Michigan.

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  10. Pasta salad would be great. I mostly focused on beans when I was planning for "drastic" recipes. I don't know why I wrote drastic. Most of what I have been making at home has been delicious and HEALTHY! Thanks for the pasta reminder.

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  11. We were able to snag a few boxes before pasta disappeared from the shelves.

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  12. Mae,
    Our pasta shelves in Miami Beach area are bare as well. We are not big pasta eaters, but I do usually keep one or two boxes in the house for just in case.. Sounds like this is one of those times that we may be glad to have it! Thanks for the pasta insights-

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  13. Yes, we have pasta. And the shelves here are full, as the only hoarding that seems to have affected supply is TP. Also, there is my pasta machine, used once so far. That may change.

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  14. We have cut back on pasta over the last couple of years, but I am planning to make lasagne this week because it tastes great, and we end up with leftovers for lunches during the week.

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  15. Your cavatappi dish looks delicious.

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