I beg to say not necessarily, and cite this in evidence:
One extract from the article:
…much also depends on what you’re looking for in the finished dish. “It’s impossible to get properly al dente pasta when you’re using fresh,” he says, “because it’s so soft and giving.” Take that classic British cultural appropriation, spag bol, otherwise known as stewed mince: “Of course, it’s still delicious with fresh tagliatelle,” Siadatan says, “but it’s really not the same as when it’s served on dried spaghetti – it doesn’t feel quite right. If, however, you had a slow-cooked sauce using similar ingredients but with larger pieces of meat, like our pulled beef shin ragù, the texture of the sauce lends itself more to wide ribbons of soft fresh egg pasta, which is why we serve it with pappardelle.”
You may prefer the taste of fresh pasta with whatever it is (appropriately?) paired with, but it really is horses for courses.
(Also, Rachel Roddy - quoted in the article - writes an excellent weekly cookery column in The Guardian - “A Kitchen in Rome”. She has a truly wonderful Italian cookery book to her name and is probably one of the best English-speaking Italian cookery writers around today. So much more than just recipes.)
These are mainly meant to be eaten “In brodo”, in a broth, where you can easily scoop them up with a spoon. They are definitely not ideal to eat with a sauce, they just won’t hold to it and stabbing them with a fork is a nightmare.
Italian pasta is a type of food, that besides it’s differend compared to the things that are sold in the USA.
Japanese and chinese noodles are a different thing too.
Spaghetti Bolognese is a no no, like udon alla amatriciana or yaki bucatini.
There was a phrase during an interview that one of Barilla managers said that they preferred the traditional family compared to have a gay family.
Advertising in the '80 was like this.
Other brands have a different advertising strategy, more tongue-in-cheek
To me there’s an implication in the statement that noodles were not that special, and it wasn’t until Italians made pasta that they we re able to “elevate it”. I do think that pasta is a great thing, and all the various pasta shapes are awesome but there are better ways to word it than how it was written in the post.
This is a good way to look at the post, and I appreciate the perspective. I do still think that the original post comes across a little churlish, but I appreciate the thinking.
Yes, but the consistency gradient in al dente pasta is parallel to the direction of bite while it is perpendicular to it in farfalle. Which means that every bite of al dente pasta will have the same consistency (albeit one that changes during the course of the bite action) while the same cannot be said for farfalle.
You are technically correct, but I refuse to believe anyone eats their pasta ‘technically’ - i.e. always ensuring that every bite is made perfectly perpendicular to every piece of pasta (nor indeed, that any pasta is always uniformly al dente in every strand from the same pan).
A mouthful of variably al dente farfalle pieces is really no different to a mouthful of al dente spaghetti strands, as far as I am concerned. I eat my pasta by the mouthful, not by the individual bite of individual pieces of pasta.
