The Pasta Benedetto Cavalieri can be found, with its name and surname, in the menus of the most careful restaurants and on the shelves of the best delicatessen and wine shops all over the world. The gourmets appreciate so much Pasta Benedetto Cavalieri for the “excellent grain flavour and delightful chewiness”, as Wine Spectator writes.
But what is Pasta Benedetto Cavalieri and what makes it so special and different from all other Italian pasta? As always, it’s the method that makes it unique. It’s called the “delicate” processing method: the long kneading, the slow pressing, drawing and drying at a low temperature, allow pasta to preserve the nutritional values of the durum wheat, its taste and typical flavour. It also secures a completely natural consistency. While traditional pasta is made in few hours at more than 100 degrees, Pasta Cavalieri honours the quality of the product and not the quantity: it’s made at 52 degrees and it takes hours and hours to be produced. Quite a difference. A niche market for pasta lovers. Once you tried it, you simply cannot switch to a different pasta brand. The flavour, the way the sauce melts and is absorbed by the Pasta Benedetto Cavalieri, has no equal.
A rigorous selection of raw materials also makes the difference: they grow in specific, selected fields, mainly on the hills of Apulia and Basilicata (South of Italy); the durum wheat is cultivated without the usual massive use of chemical fertilizers that increases the quantities of pasta production, at the expense of its quality.
Did I tell you that Pasta Benedetto Cavalieri firm is run by the great grand son of the 1800 Mr. Benedetto Cavalieri? The keenness for pasta, the attention and care, with the constant research for the best quality that the Cavalieri Family hands out from generation to generation, makes it a perfect plot for a movie. As a matter of fact, there has been a movie that got inspired by the fascinating story: it’s called Loose Cannons (Mine Vaganti), by Ferzand Ozpetek. And talking about movies, you can see an appearance of Pasta Cavalieri, as a background actor, in Something’s Gotta Give, with Jack Nicholson. Quite impressive for a niche product in the most competitive Italian industry.
There are 32 different pasta cuts within the production, but 2 of them are the Cavalieri family feather in the cap: the spaghettoni, full lenght and thicker than spaghetti, and the ruote pazze, crazy wheels, indeed the most original short pasta and one of the best in the world.
