ITALIAN PASTA 

Pasta may be a kind of food generally made up of AN unraised dough of flour  

mixed with water or eggs, and shaped into sheets or alternative shapes, then hard-boiled by boiling or baking. Rice flour, or legumes equivalent to beans or lentils, are typically utilized in place of wheat flour to yield a distinct style and texture, or as a gluten-free alternative. alimentary paste is a staple food of Italian cuisine.

alimentary pastes are divided into 2 broad categories: dried and fresh. Most dried pasta is created commercially via an extrusion process, though it may be produced at home. contemporary pasta is historically created by hand, typically with the help of easy machines. contemporary alimentary pastes available in grocery stores are produced commercially by large-scale machines.

each dried and fresh pastas are available variety of shapes and varieties, with 310 specific kinds known by over 1,300 documented names. In Italy, the names of specific pasta shapes or sorts usually vary by locale. For example, the pasta form cavatelli is thought by twenty eight totally different names relying upon the city and region. Common sorts of pasta embody long and short shapes, tubes, flat shapes or sheets, miniature shapes for soup, those meant to be crammed or stuffed, and specialty or ornamental shapes.

As a class in Italian cuisine, each contemporary and dried alimentary pastes are classically utilized in one among 3 varieties of ready dishes: as pasta asciutta, hard-boiled pasta is plated and served with a complementary sauce or condiment; a second classification of pasta dishes is pasta in brodo, within which the pasta is a component of a soup-type dish. a 3rd category is pasta al forno, in which the pasta is incorporated into a dish that's afterwards baked within the oven. alimentary paste dishes are usually simple, however individual dishes vary in preparation. Some alimentary paste dishes are served as atiny low initial course or for light-weight lunches, equivalent to pasta salads. alternative dishes is also portioned larger and used for dinner. alimentary paste sauces equally could vary in taste, color and texture.

In terms of nutrition, hard-boiled plain pasta is 31�rbohydrates, 6% protein, and low in fat, with moderate amounts of manganese, however pasta usually has low matter content. alimentary paste may be enriched or fortified, or made up of whole grains.

Etymology

initial documented in English in 1874, the word "pasta" comes from Italian pasta, successively from Latin pasta, latinisation of the Greek παστά "barley porridge".

History

within the 1st century AD writings of Horace, lagana were fine sheets of deep-fried dough ANd were an everyday foodstuff. Writing in the second century Athenaeus of Naucratis provides a direction for lagana that he attributes to the first century Chrysippus of Tyana: sheets of dough fabricated from flour and also the juice of crushed lettuce, then seasoned with spices and deep-fried in oil. AN early fifth century reference book describes a dish referred to as lagana that consisted of layers of dough with meat stuffing, an ascendant of contemporary lasagna. However, the strategy of preparation these sheets of dough doesn't correspond to our trendy definition of either a contemporary or dry alimentary paste product, that solely had similar basic ingredients and maybe the shape. the primary concrete data regarding pasta product in Italian Republic dates from the thirteenth or fourteenth century.

Historians have noted many lexical milestones relevant to pasta, none of which changes these basic characteristics. For example, the works of the second century AD Greek medical practitioner Galen mention itrion, unvaried compounds fabricated from flour and water. The capital of Israel Talmudic literature records that itrium, a form of stewed dough, was common in Palestine from the third to fifth centuries AD. A lexicon compiled by the ninth century Arab medical practitioner and linguist Isho bar Ali defines itriyya, the Arabic cognate, as string-like shapes fabricated from flour and dried before cooking. The geographical text of Muhammad al-Idrisi, compiled for the Norman King of Sicily Roger

II in 1154 mentions itriyya factory-made and exported from Norman Sicily

One style of itriyya with a protracted history is laganum, that in Latin refers to a skinny sheet of dough, and provides rise to Italian lasagna.

In North Africa, a food like pasta, known as couscous, has been eaten up for centuries. However, it lacks the distinctive malleable nature of alimentary paste, couscous being additional comparable to droplets of dough. At first, dry pasta was a luxury item in Italian Republic owing to high labor costs; Triticum turgidum flour had to be kneaded for a protracted time.

there's a legend of Marco Polo commercialism pasta from China that originated with the Macaroni Journal, revealed by AN association of food industries with the goal of promoting pasta within the United States. Rustichello prosecutor Pisa writes in his Travels that Marco Polo represented a food similar to "lagana". Jeffrey Steingarten asserts that Arabs introduced alimentary paste within the Emirate of Sicily in the ninth century, mentioning conjointly that traces of pasta are found in ancient Balkan country which Jane Grigson believed the Marco Polo story to possess originated in the Twenties or Nineteen Thirties in a billboard for a Canadian pasta company.