![]() ![]() Savor the simplicity and the chance to be in a world where less is almost always more. Show some restraint Restraint is the common bond between all great Italian regional cooking-a culture where Parmesan on many pastas (especially seafood-based pastas) is a sacrilege, and even a wedge of lemon can be seen as an assault on pristine seafood. Above all, that means thinking not addition but subtraction, not what else can I add, but what can I take away? That means refraining from unholy acts of aggression: throwing it against the wall, adding oil to the boiling water, spinning the pasta against your spoon, or for God's sake cutting the noodles with a knife and a fork. That means saucing it sparingly, in the same way a French chef might dress a salad, carefully calibrating the heft and the intensity of the sauce to the noodle itself. That means cooking it properly, ignoring package or recipe instructions and instead relying on a system of vigilant testing until only the barest thread of raw pasta remains in the center of the noodle. The bond between flour and water (and in some cases egg) is sacrosanct, and it must not be broken unnecessarily, compromised by sloppy cooking or aggressive saucing or tableware transgressions. The rest of the world openly wonders what makes Italian pasta so good and theirs so mediocre, but the answer is right in front of their faces: the pasta itself. ![]() Among the pillars of Italian cuisine, pasta is the most sacred-the one that has inspired thousands of books, millions of journeys, and infinite debates about how to do it right. ![]()
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