More remembrance of things pasta

MANILA, Philippines - Spaghetti Bolognese (or Bolognaise) consists of a meat sauce served on a bed of spaghetti with a good sprinkling of grated Parmigiano cheese. Although it is very popular outside of Italy, it never exists in Bologna, where its ragù (Italian term for a meat-based sauce) is served always with the local egg pastas tagliatelle or lasagne. Spaghetti is a durum wheat pasta from Naples, and the Naples Ragù of a meat flavored thick tomato sauce clings much better to slippery spaghetti than Bologna’s ground beef ragù. In the United States also the term ‘bolognese’ is applied to a tomato-and-ground-beef sauce that bears little resemblance to ragù served in Bologna.

Long pasta (pasta lungi) like cappelli d’angelo (angel’s hair), spaghetti, linguine, bucatini, fusilli lungi. All suitable for tomato sauces, herb based sauces, carbonara and Bolognese sauce. Flat pastas are meant for cream sauces, whereas tomato based sauces cling better to round pastas

Pasta in Italy is always served in small portions (90 grams uncooked) after the first appetizer.  Only recently, North American restaurateurs have started serving pasta as a main course, after discovering that expensive proteins like seafood, meat sauce, and blending them with bulky pasta can stretch.

Spaghetti and meatballs is a dish unknown in Italy, but probably had its origin in several baked Neapolitan pasta dishes served at religious festivals such as Carnival and Christmas. (Naples is the capital of Campania.) Remembering that meat in Italy is costly, these dishes used meatballs the size of walnuts—unlike the American version that used meatballs the size of golf balls, with America being the land of abundance. The large portions served, and heavy seasonings of garlic, oregano and hot pepper flakes, are American developments.