I had my no-pasta, no-carb period, as a teenager. I felt I absolutely had to shed those couple of kilos deposited exactly where they shouldn’t be.
Fortunately this moment has passed and I am through the other side. These days, in spite of  – or maybe thanks to – the many years spent living abroad, a pasta dish has a deeper significance for me and one that goes beyond the pure nourishment it provides. To me, it means home, friends and family: it’s the last minute spaghetti dish for the son who arrives home late, for the uninvited but welcome friend who rings the bell at dinner time, for myself, when all the family is out and I secretly indulge in a TV-dinner on the sofa- something that is strictly forbidden to anyone else.
In this issue, dedicated to Pasta and with the proud support of the Expo, you’ll learn something you may not have been aware of about this quintessentially �?Italian’ food. For example, we explain that spaghetti with meatballs, so famous abroad, does not exist in Italy.
We recall that the Futurists tried to abolish pasta, saying it is bad for men’s virility, but (luckily) they failed. We’ve interviewed an expert and we’ve discovered that it’s not true that pasta makes you fat (hurray!). We went to Rome, where in primary school menus they swap pasta for fish& chips, stirring up parent’s rage. And if you think kneading pasta is difficult, you’ll be happy to know there is now a computer software that can do it for you!
