Posted on 06/15/2011 6:50:47 PM PDT by decimon
Pasta has topped a global survey of the world's favourite foods. So how did the dish so closely associated with Italy become a staple of so many tables around the globe?
While not everyone knows the difference between farfalle, fettuccine and fusilli, many people have slurped over a bowl of spaghetti bolognese or tucked into a plate of lasagne.
Certainly in British households, spaghetti bolognese has been a regular feature of mealtimes since the 1960s. It's become a staple of children's diets, while a tuna-pasta-sweetcorn concoction can probably be credited with sustaining many students through their years at university.
But now a global survey by the charity Oxfam has named pasta as the world's most popular dish, ahead of meat, rice and pizza. As well as being popular in unsurprising European countries, pasta was one of the favourites in the Philippines, Guatemala, Brazil and South Africa.
And figures from the International Pasta Organisation show Venezuela is the second largest consumer of pasta, after Italy. Tunisia, Chile and Peru also feature in the top 10, while Mexicans, Argentineans and Bolivians all eat more pasta than the British.
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It is a complex carbohydrate which releases all the goodness slowly and you feel satisfied for a long time.
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(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
To my mind, the best Mexican food in the world, outside of Mexico, is served parallel to a line running from Taos, NM south to and including El Paso. From Santa Fe south, roughly either side of along I-25. I think Arizona is runner-up.
Ha! That can’t be real. People didn’t have a sense of humor in 1957. Especially not the Brits.
Thanks! I was wondering about the big bold font, myself.
Have to look into this `sopa seca’, although my favorite pasta dish is spaghetti carbonara, aka `heart attack on a plate’.
;^)
Prestige? If they could buy votes with pasta it was because people were dirt poor and hungry.
The only bold font I see is in post #13.
And they are wonderful Christian people. It's a family place.
I miss those guys.
/johnny
I'm a culinary school grad and tend to walk out back of the kitchen door and talk to the cooks on smoke breaks.
I've made a lot of good friends in Northern NM, and done some gratis (fill in for vacationing cooks, etc) cooking up there, to keep my hand in the business, and to humbly learn how THEY cook their food that I love so well.
I'm harvesting green chilis this week here in Texas, and had fresh smoked/grilled pork and green chili in the form of Navajo open-face tacos. The rest of that pork will go into tamales tomorrow, served with fresh green chili gravy.
/johnny
When Marco Polo returned from his journeys, which took him all the way to China, he brought back with him, to Italy....PASTA! And the rest is history. Pasta of all kinds is my favorite “starch.”
Hard to find bad food in New Mexico. I mean, you would really have to go out of your way. One time we visited the shrine at Chimayo and there was a little take-out stand next to the sanctuary parking lot. Talk about a religious experience. I had the best posole I’ve ever eaten in my life, I had to have a second bowl, and then ate a burito de chicarron to die for. Exquisite. I mean, I could have just lived in that parking lot.
The OP article claims that the old “Marco Polo brought it back from China” story is a myth.
"Heh, come over here, kid, learn something. You never know, you might have to cook for 20 guys someday. You see, you start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; ya make sure it doesn't stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs; heh? And a little bit o' wine. An' a little bit o' sugar, and that's my trick."
As a native Texan I sure recognized the difference in Mexican food in California and in New Mexico from Texas, and of course in different regions of Mexico itself.
It's certainly possible. On a number of occasions I've been stuck in Alamagordo for a few weeks at a time. What a dump.
Hit refresh.
Well.....that’s news to me. Of course.....there are people saying lots of things we learned in history class....back in the 1950s.....are no longer true. They’d even like us to go so far as to believe that Christ never arose from the dead, either.
I’ll stick with what I learned back when educators still gave a hoot.....when we started the school day with the reading of Scripture, The Lord’s Prayer and The Pledge of Allegiance. These clowns who think all intelligent things have only been done in the last 50 years! How many CENTURIES ago did Newton and Pythagorus and Euclid complete their work?
A glittering example of modern-day ignorance is the commercial for the Rosetta Stone language system. The illiterate clods who do the commercials....have NO CLUE what the Rosetta Stone was, or when it was discovered, or why it is significant. The proof that they don’t know ANYTHING about it is that they pronounce it as though it were a woman’s name....with the emphasis on STONE instead of on the ETTA in RosETTA, which is where it belongs....if you are aware that THE Rosetta Stone was actually a STONE, and not merely a fictitious female name! Look THAT up in your Funk & Wagnalls!
Oh, what the hey! I might as well do a little educating while I’m in the mood. If anyone cares to learn a little about the actual RosETTA Stone, here’s a link:
http://www.crystalinks.com/rosetta.html
Yep, but the mainstream chain restaurants serve a modified Tex-mex that sells well to Joe and Susie Sixpack.
The only good Mexican/Native American restaurant food seems to be in little holes in the wall where the staff is more comfortable speaking with you in Spanish. But that doesn't always mean good food. I find the best food seems to come from mom and pop places where staff is happy and openly Christian.
/johnny
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