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A healthy tradition
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A concentration of flavours. And of energy. Our grandparents knew well that in Italy during the Second World War post-war period, pasta was the main dish of their diet. Therefore, pasta and bread; many vegetables and legumes, little meat, olive oil instead of animal fats: this is how rural Italy set the basis of the "Mediterranean diet", which the United States rediscovered in the first 90's as the best way to obtain a balanced and healthy diet. Graphically represented by the so-called "nutrition pyramid", the Mediterranean diet is based on nutrients that are rich in carbohydrates (experts suggest approximately 55-60% values in the daily calorie intake), followed immediately by fruit and vegetables; while meat, dairy products and fat must be moderately consumed.
Deriving from a mixture of durum-wheat semolina and water, pasta is mostly constituted by carbohydrates (74%), principally in the form of starch; water is approximately 13%, while proteins amount to 12%; there is a minor presence of fats (approximately 1%). The productive process of pasta does not include the use of additives or preservatives: it's the drying process that guarantees the product's shelf-life; what is important to say is that during the process from durum-wheat semolina to pasta, very few wheat nutrients are lost. |
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In evaluating the nutritional values, pasta should be considered together with the sauces that accompany it: for example, from an energetic point of view, 100 g of pasta made from durum-wheat semolina with no sauce, amounts to 350 kcal, and the calories increase to 432 if you add a simple tomato sauce, reaching 662 with cream, ham and peas. Pasta alone isn't able to satisfy completely all nutritional requirements of the human body, because of the insignificant biological value of the proteins present in glutens: actually, one of the essential amino acids, lysine, is almost totally absent. This is the reason why an appropriate sauce has a very important role: adding cheese, meat or fish, nutrients that are rich in proteins, rebalances the nutritional values of pasta, making it a nutritionally complete dish within a balanced diet.
Different considerations regard filled pasta: compared to durum-wheat semolina pasta, a greater protein value can be found in pasta used for these recipes, owing to the presence of eggs in the layers. The filling is generally made with meat, cheese, and eggs, which contribute in increasing significantly the protein content, making filled pasta a true "one-course meal" where nutritional values offer the necessary conditions required in a balanced diet.
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Italian Law established since 1967 that dry pasta - and egg pasta - must be exclusively produced with durum wheat. Pasta obtained with Triticum turgidum durum-wheat semolina (obtained from durum wheat) possesses the characteristics of having a high resistance (owing to the presence of glutens), which we do not have in soft wheat flour pasta (Triticun aestivum), which is suitable, for its highly stretching properties, for the production of leaven products.
The short growing cycles of durum wheat make it perfect also for cultivations in areas with a dry climate, such as in the Mediterranean basin.
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TRADITION AND TECHNOLOGY: THE PRODUCTIVE PROCESS |
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Durum wheat and water: from the very beginning of civilization, pasta has been made with these two essential ingredients, and the processing techniques hadn't changed much up to the beginning of the twentieth-century. After grinding the wheat, which throughout the entire eighteenth-century was carried out with wheel-shaped millstones, the wheat must be cleared from its impurities with sieves, first manually and then mechanically. The wheat is then kneaded with hot or cold water, and this was once done manually or by also using the feet to help, then with machines; following is the kneading phase, which is necessary to make the dough more homogeneous by means of an operation called "kneader" (first with bars or with a mixing-mill, then with blades and at last with cone-shaped rollers).
Some types of pasta, handmade or with eggs, undergo refinement, which means it passes through two smooth rollers that pull the pasta in thin layers. At present, the different shapes of pasta are obtained making the dough go through stamping dies, in order to obtain, according to the different sections, strings, ribbon bands, tubes, which are later cut and twisted into the desired shape .
The last delicate procedure is the drying process. In Italy, a revolution takes place in 1933, with the first press-kneading machine, built by the two engineers Giuseppe and Mario Braibanti from Parma, which starts an automation of the process in modern pasta factories. The rest is history, a tale that for 130 years has been told on our tables.
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