A lifetime of pasta
Credit to Author: THE MANILA TIMES| Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 12:15:43 +0000
It was there, on your first birthday. Mom churned up cheesy spaghetti and every child at your party beamed with delight, their faces smudged with yummy, red-sauced spaghetti.
And the seasons changed. A bowlful of piping-hot elbow macaroni soup soothed your tummy and your soul, as you came home drenched from rain, all worn out by the day’s work, deadlines and traffic. Ahh! Chicken macaroni soup always restores. So today, you rise again. And go to work. Connect. Deal. Fail a little. Win, overall. Tonight sounds inviting. Your lady whipped up some divine lasagna for dinner.
What is life, without pasta?
Must be the reason why all of Italy was floored, when Marco Polo brought home pasta from his China explorations. That today, Italy tops all countries of the world in eating, loving and creating pasta. There are now over 600 pasta shapes or kinds. How many have you tried? How do you rate on the pasta literacy scale?
Pasta is Culture
Italy, Tunisia, Venezuela. These are the top three countries, in terms of pasta volume consumption. The United States is also very big on pasta and their top three favorite shapes are spaghetti, penne and rotini or twist — in that order. Asians naturally so love pasta after all the Chinese invented it.
In the Philippines, the boom in theme restaurants due to millennials’ love for good food and dining out has raised the bar for gourmet pasta appreciation. Today, a restaurant cannot thrive on spaghetti alone. For customers to return for a second or third visit, there must be lasagna, linguine, fettuccine, penne, and fusilli pasta on the menu. And of course, the staples. The good, all-time favorites — baked elbow macaroni and cheese, salad macaroni.
“Pasta!” So says famous Italian film director and screenwriter Federico Fellini, whose works include the classic film La Dolce Vita. Perhaps Fellini recognized that each chapter, each milestone of our life, is made more memorable indeed… if celebrated through the many shapes and colors of pasta itself.
It is Ideal Gourmet Pasta, the main brand of Ideal Macaroni & Spaghetti Factory, Inc. that nurtures the Filipinos’ growing love for gourmet pasta with over 15 pasta variants to delight foodies with, it has become the preferred past brand of food service establishments and consumers alike. Aside from this, it regularly introduced new shapes or types of pasta. Recently, it launched its Squid Ink Spaghetti.
October 25 is World Pasta Day, the date on which we honor the many kinds and flavors and stories and memories we all have, of this marvelous food called “pasta”. It marked the many milestones and moments of our life. Pasta is so wonderful that even runners and athletes herald it as their “super-food”, for carb-loading. Did you know that the week before a race or marathon, runners take to pasta to fill their muscle glycogen storage tanks with the energy needed to fuel a long run? On the night before each race or marathon, athletes indulge in a so-called pasta party for strength and endurance. No wonder the quip “Eat pasta, run Fasta” certainly makes so much sense.