Lou Hughesele

NoodiMag Volume 5

Welcome to NoodiMag, the container for all my noodling on noodles, pastas, and all related topics.

Pasta Shapes Consumed: Ditalini; Rotini; Elbow Macaroni; Miniature Shells; Penne Rigate; Tortellini

Total Pasta Shapes To Date: 16

The Appetizer:

I am often thinking about how far we have strayed from G-d. Or perhaps how far we have strayed from the true nature of things, from our true nature. What is our true nature? Does a Thing remain that Thing as it transforms over time? At what point has some Thing changed enough that it becomes some Thing else?
Obviously what I mean is: how confused and horrified would a medieval peasant from what we now call Italy be if they were transported to the room where I take my breaks from work and saw me microwaving some frozen pasta for dinner? Would the final product be even remotely recognizable to them as pasta, or, more accurately to their period, lasagne or vermicelli or macaroni or whatever other current local term they’re familiar with?
Certainly the processes by which it got to me would be unrecognizable. To them, pasta (or lasagne or vermicelli or macaroni…) is something mixed by hand (or foot…), shaped by hand, dried in the sun over several days, cooked with boiling water, and tossed with whatever oils and dairy and meats and vegetables are available locally.
They don’t even know about tomatoes or crushed red pepper or vodka. Penne did not exist yet, as mechanical extruders had not yet been invented. So my penne alla vodka, for instance, is entirely unfathomable to them. Never mind that the fact of it being mass produced, frozen, shipped across the globe, and then cooked in a microwave is beyond comprehension in a way that a new species of plant or a new fermented beverage is not.
I know that, fundamentally, at its core, it is technically the same Thing. But it feels meaningful that it is also so fundamentally different. I would rather be eating the medieval peasant’s version, to be quite honest, though I would not prefer so much else about their circumstances. It’s a tangible and quotidian reminder of how tremendously unusual our lives are compared to most of human existence. And yet, here I am, pondering over wheat and water, like countless ancestors before me. 

The Entree:

As I learn about the history of pastas, I can’t help but wonder what we’ve lost to all these supposed technological advances of the last five hundred years or so, and at whose expense.
Like many other industries, pasta production began as domestic work performed by women for family and community. It went through a long process of increasing commercialization, then mechanization, then industrialization. This centuries-long shift was not inevitable. At each stage, resistance to the change endured. Capitalism and its “progress” marched on anyways, but a version of the old ways has persisted, too.
For many generations, pastas were created by women’s hands into shapes of which we could scarcely dream. In the Renaissance period, pasta production moved to the markets of Italian cities, where men took over the task, with the help of presses and dies that pressed and cut the noodles into standard shapes, though otherwise using tools similar to those of ancient times. The men often still kneaded the dough with their feet, which made it soft enough to pass through the dies. But, the men also remained in competition with women, with nunneries still producing large quantities in unique shapes that could be sold at a discount due to their status as religious institutions.
In the 19th Century, the mixing and kneading of the dough was mechanized and innovated upon, and so women’s place in pasta shrank further. Really, the human body’s role in the process shrank further.
The innovations of the 1800s saw pasta production become faster and faster and larger and larger. By the turn of the 20th Century, machines were invented to mix, knead, extrude, and cut pasta automatically and continuously. Now, most pasta makers were machinists, not artisans. Muscle and blood did the work, not nimble fingers and feet and creative minds.
Workers in at least one factory rioted in protest of the machines taking their jobs. They were quashed, imprisoned, and that factory never saw another riot.
Drying was the hardest aspect of pasta production to automate. For centuries, the area around Naples stood as the pasta capital of the world due to its unique climate perfectly suited to the delicate nature of drying in particular. For so long, this was done outside, in the sun, benefitting from alternating warm, humid winds and dry, cool winds owing to its specific location between the Sahara and the Alps. Pasta makers in other locations faced high risk of souring, fermentation, molding, and poor texture. That is, until they finally figured out a multi-step artificial drying process that saved time and effort.
Neapolitan producers initially refused these methods. Why make a capital investment in machinery when nature did the work for them? And so, capitalism left them behind. Pasta production could now happen anywhere, quickly, at massive scale, without interference of the sun, the wind, or the human hand.
I’ve said nothing of the production of the wheat itself, but this, too, went through similar processes of mechanization and automatization throughout the “Enlightenment” and Industrial Revolution. Even the sun and wind are no longer required for this once earthly task.
My main source for this research takes all this change uncritically as a good thing, as a testament to human ingenuity. But I think we already had human ingenuity when this process came with deep relation to the earth and each other. When it came with specific geography, favorable weather, gentle hands and strong feet. Shelke writes that innovations in die cutting offered endless possibilities in shapes, but I don’t see any mass manufactured pastas perfectly imitating the shapes of vegetables and beans these days the way they did centuries ago. Dies offer symmetry and sameness. This is not infinity.
We have fed the masses, but they have not been enriched. Not like the macaroni products they are sold for profit. My microwave pasta meal comes to me through imperialism and capitalism. It comes to me at no small expense to the earth, the workers, and our full experience of the fullness of the world. It is convenient. It is fast. It is tasty enough. But is that worth the true cost? 

The Dessert:

With Purim this coming week, I want to leave you with a Purim pasta dish from Bulgaria: Caveos di Aman. Purim is a holiday about celebrating being Jews and hating this mother fucker called Haman, who was a genocidal government official, and then celebrating again about outsmarting this mother fucker called Haman.
One of many very fun ways to celebrate Purim is with a little light culinary body horror, of which Caveos di Aman is an example. It’s spaghetti or vermicelli tossed in lemon and olive oil and topped with olives and hard-boiled eggs. You see, the noodles are Haman’s hair. and the olives and eggs… they’re supposed to represent his eyes!! This is one of many dishes where you’re supposed to pick out the eyes and think about how much you hate genocidal government officials and how much you love defeating them.
So this issue’s dessert is an invitation to join in this tradition. Go ahead, make some spaghetti, top it with something that looks like some kind of body part, and symbolically devour your enemies. It’s fun!

Thanks for reading! Maybe next time will be better. 

Works Cited:Shelke, K. (2016).  Pasta and Noodles: A Global History. Reaktion Books Ltd.