Under The Spaghetti Tree: Part 2

Sophia Loren once said that “everything you see, I owe to spaghetti”. It’s a maxim that could well apply to a nation. Virtually every person in the country, whatever their generation, whatever their background, has grown up with spaghetti. A collective memory, spaghetti is intrinsic to the national psyche. It is one of the few great unifying forces in a country of regional dialects.

A few miles from where I live, just outside Parma, there’s a huge Barilla pasta factory. As we return from a long journey, it looms up from the side of the road like a beacon and I know we are minutes from home. A few years back Barilla launched an advertising campaign with the catchphrase ‘Dové C’é Barilla, C’è Casa’ – where there is Barilla, there’s home. Like all good advertising campaigns it bore more than a modicum of truth. The sentimental chord struck by the advertisement was the notion that pasta and home are somehow synonymous.

I never did eat spaghetti freshly picked from the spaghetti tree (see my last post) – I just assumed it wasn’t in season.  But that never stopped my mother. On the annual family pilgrimage from the north of Ireland down to the south of Italy my mother would always pack a few packets of spaghetti in the boot of the car for the trip – enough to get us from Belfast to the outskirts of Naples. At the time it never occurred to me how odd we must have looked to other motorists passing by: three children sitting around a fold-up table in a lay-by somewhere on the other side of Dublin watching as my mother, stooped over a camper’s stove,  ladled spaghetti onto plastic plates while my father grated pecorino cheese directly over the top. We were eating spaghetti cacio e pepe (the classic spaghetti with pecorino and pepper), but to my brother, sister and I at the time, it was just ‘spaghetti cheese’.  

Spaghetti was just as much a part of my childhood as bedtime stories, the school playground and Saturday night baths. We must have looked every bit the mangiamaccheroni – macaroni eaters – who used to eat spaghetti with their hands on the streets of Naples (we used forks, of course!). The invention of the mechanised press in the latter part of the 18^th century meant that dried pasta, for the first time, could be produced in large quantities and at lower cost. The population of Naples was rising rapidly and the people were hungry. In a few short years, pasta secca (dried pasta) became the symbol of the city. It was cucina povera (poor people’s food) for the masses. In 1840 the first industrial pasta plant opened in Torre Annunziata, just south of Naples. A few years later, in 1844, the first recipe for pasta with a tomato sauce appeared in a Neapolitan cookbook.

Versatile, inexpensive and nutritious, the craze that defined a city quickly engulfed a nation. Large industrial dried pasta factories in Liguria and Sicily shipped pasta to every port in the country. A string of others were soon established in and around Naples. And Italians, a nation of emigrants, carried it with them in their suitcases to every corner of the globe. I like to think of my grandparents, years ago when they first came to Ireland, disembarking from a ship onto Belfast docks, a strange and unfamiliar city, with nothing but the clothes they owned and a few packets of spaghetti – a taste of home.

Spaghetti with Pecorino Cheese and Ground Black Pepper

Spaghetti cacio e pepe

The origins of this classic dish are disputed. It is popularly considered of Roman origin but both the Sicilians and the Neapolitans claim that it was in fact invented either on the streets of Palermo or Naples. There may be some truth in the claims. The mangiamaccheroni of Naples would have eaten their pasta simply, straight from the cauldron and certainly without the addition of tomato sauce (which came later). Pecorino cheese was common to the city and it may well have been added to the pasta as a dressing for flavour, as might pepper.

Wherever it came from, this dish is as simple as dried pasta gets (so easy, in fact, it can hardly be called a recipe!). There are variations on the dish. Some advocate not using any extra virgin olive oil. Others suggest using an equal mix of pecorino cheese and parmesan. In the north of Italy a similar dish is made using butter instead of oil and just parmesan cheese. Personally I prefer the following recipe but that’s just a question of taste.

Serves 4

Preparation time:  5 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

320g spaghetti

250g semi-mature pecorino cheese, grated

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Add the pasta and cook until just al dente. Once the pasta is cooked, drain, reserving a small amount (a few tablespoons) of the cooking water. Place the pasta back in the pot and add the water, the olive oil, the cheese and plenty of black pepper. Toss well and serve immediately (for a truly authentic Neapolitan experience, try eating with your hands!).

Under The Spaghetti Tree: Part I

As a child I used to believe that spaghetti grew on trees and that Marco Polo brought it to Italy from China. As we drove through the Italian countryside during our summer holidays, I remember the excitement in the backseat as my brother, sister and I searched for the first sighting of the supposedly ubiquitous spaghetti tree. My father, something of a practical joker, had something I’m sure to do with perpetuating the myth. I had visions of playing beneath a chandelier of spaghetti as my mother picked the choicest strands and threw them directly into a pot of boiling water. For obvious reasons, the proverbial tree proved illusive - we had to settle for olive groves - but it was great fun nonetheless!

The fact is, no one can say for certain where spaghetti originated or how long a history it has (maybe it does grow on trees!). Children today are more food savvy. My eldest son Massimo, who’s 8 now, knew almost immediately that I was pulling his leg when I resurrected the myth on a drive down to Naples last summer. He said: “Daddy you’re joking, right? Spaghetti doesn’t grow on trees, it comes from Barilla”. From the corner of my eye I did, however, catch my younger son Giuliano, sneaking an exploratory peek out the window.

Of course, the popular myth that Marco Polo brought it home from his travels was debunked many years ago (at about the same time someone also discounted the notion that it grows on trees). Since then, theories have abounded but the fact is that no one knows how long the history of spaghetti spans. Its origins are intertwined with the history of pasta which is lost in time. Part of the problem is one of terminology. The word ‘spaghetti’, if not the product, is of relatively recent origin. It was only in the early 1800s that it came into popular usage. The word most used in the Middle Ages, in generic fashion for all forms of pasta, was maccheroni – spelt in as many different ways probably as it was cooked. The earliest record found thus far of the word spaghetti is in a dictionary of Italian dialect, coincidentally here in my home province of Piacenza, which was published in 1836. It wasn’t until 10 years later, in 1846, that the word spaghetti was first recorded in a mainstream dictionary, where it was equated with vermicelli. Even today, in parts of Italy, particularly in the south, the words vermicelli and spaghetti are used to describe the same thing.

Myths, origins and etymological considerations aside, spaghetti as a staple of the masses didn’t become popular until the latter part of the 19^th century. Its rise coincided with the introduction of the extrusion press and subsequent technological developments which simplified the laborious process of producing the long thin strands. Today some estimates suggest that spaghetti accounts for something in the region of two-thirds of the world’s consumption of pasta. Dishes such as spaghetti alla carbonara, spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with clams), spaghetti al pomodoro (spaghetti with tomto sauce), spaghetti, aglio, olio e peperoncino (spaghetti with garlic, oil and chilli peppers) have gained world renown and come to symbolise a nation, a people and its food.

As for myself, I’m going to go out and pick some spaghetti for lunch – I’ll take a look under the tree in the garden and if that fails, I suppose I’ll go to the shops.

Spaghetti with garlic, olive oil and chilli pepper

Spaghetti, aglio, olio e peperoncino

Serves 4

Preparation time:  5 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

320g spaghetti

2 cloves garlic (or more, to taste)

1 fresh chilli or 1 tsp dried chilli flakes (again, more or less to taste)

6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

A handful chopped fresh parsley

Place the oil in a deep-sided frying pan. Heat gently and add the garlic finely sliced and the chopped chilli. Allow it to warm through and infuse very gently until the pasta is cooked. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and add the spaghetti. Cook until just al dente. Drain the pasta and throw it into the frying pan. Turn up the heat for just a few seconds while you thoroughly toss the pasta. Sprinkle over freshly chopped parsley and serve immediately.