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Pasta?

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The other night I made the most amazing homemade lasagna, so that got me to thinking about pasta in our time frames.
Sure we have Jefferson's Macaroni, Kugel, Spatzel, and so on.....

But what else?
Paintings suggest it was quite popular in Italy but Jefferson learned of it from France.... :hmm:

Here are some paintings from the 17th-19th centuries.

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Ah yes, but the Geography may be misleading, since Italian culture was all the rage in Europe from the AWI up through Jefferson's presidential administration. Men who heavily embraced all things Italian were called "macaronies"

Yankee Doodle came to London,
Riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap,
and called it macaroni


I don't use pasta much if ever in camp, but perhaps that's an omission that needs correction?

LD
 
One of the more interesting pasta shapes is the Corzetti or Croxetti.
A flat round coin shaped pasta embossed with a design using a wooden stamp served either with pesto or a meat sauce or a white nut sauce, they date back to the middle ages.

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JUST when I think I've seen about all the different "Italian" pasta, something new pops up. :haha:

Actually the cultural area where these are very traditional is pretty close to France, and would then have made it very easy over time for it to migrate into France.

Add Catherine de Medici into the mix in the 16th century, and her introduction of a lot of Northern Italian dishes into the French court, and it's a pretty good bet.

Another thing I observed is that if the pasta maker made corzetti, which were cut and stamped..., then one could use just about any wheat or grain, even with a low gluten content or protein other than gluten and get results while a noodle or a macaroni might not work with such an ingredient that was lacking the elasticity of the gluten.

Besides...., they look yummy, and I LIKE PESTO!
:thumbsup:

LD
 
I was reading a book recently about an Italian wine maker in the northern part of Italy (Piedmont area) and according to this book Jefferson, while in France, would travel to this part of Italy. The grapes vines he took back to Virginia were from Italy. In any event Jefferson really liked the Piedmont area. This was all before the unification of Italy so the area was an assortment of smaller kingdoms. I got the idea Jefferson might have been our minister to France but he preferred Italy.
 
Pasta is very simple and easy to make, even for a peasant...Royalty was always trying to impress and out do other royalty....especially with food. however the thing to remember is that royalty (dare I say) never cooked their own meals, it was done by peasant servants.
So when things like pasta immigrated to a new country it would have spread to the lower classes very quickly.
 
I would also think food prejudices played a part also. People tended to look askance at unfamiliar foods. In Mexico tomatoes had long be used Spaniards returning home could pass it on. Wheat didn’t grow as well in Mexico so pasta didn’t catch on there. Potatoes that made a big hit in Northern Europe didn’t grow as well in southren Europe. Maize became cheap animal fodder in Europe.
 
colorado clyde said:
Pasta is also a great way to store and use extra eggs.

That’s a good point, and it last as well as ships bread, it cooks up a lot nicer. I wonder that it didn’t find its way in to military rations of the day.
 
tenngun said:
That’s a good point, and it last as well as ships bread, it cooks up a lot nicer. I wonder that it didn’t find its way in to military rations of the day.
Likely because it took a goodly amount of water to cook...
 
:idunno: reuse the water you soaked your salt meat in?
Well they didn’t do it so we can’t explain why.
I’ve read a lot about English and American navel diets and food on mercant ships. I don’t know what the diet was for Spanish or even French vessels. Or for that matter the German states.
 
Reason #1...They didn't want fat sailors.

Reason #2...Can you imagine trying to eat spaghetti on a ship careening about the waves?...It's hard enough to wrangle on terraferma.
 
I stumble across this today by accident, regarding tomatoes.

Tomatoes were grown in elite town and country gardens in the fifty years or so following their arrival in Europe and were only occasionally depicted in works of art. However, in 1592 the head gardener at the botanical garden of Aranjuez near Madrid, under the patronage of Philip II of Spain wrote, "it is said [tomatoes] are good for sauces.
 
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