The sauce should be very light, or better, just some salt and olive oil with a squeeze of lemon. But in the summertime, it can be served cold with a refreshing salad or with seafood to accompany it. Pasta is usually served piping hot, whether it’s just off the stove or right out of the oven, such as lasagna. Pasta is also extremely versatile in the way that it can be served – because it is a dish that can be consumed hot or cold. Of course, cheese is a naturally recommended pairing to have with your pasta dish, unless it is seafood based. You can add a selection of fresh vegetables along with a variety of different meats and fish. There are a wide range of ingredients that can enhance your pasta dish, so this should detract from the generalized image that you have of a huge bowl of plain pasta. There is a lot more to pasta types than initially meets the (foreigners’) eyes, that’s for sure. After all, the shape and the size of pasta contributes to the textures within your meal.

This is something that Italians will have a wide appreciation for, because part of the art of cooking with pasta is matching up the shapes and the sizes of the pasta with specific sauce recipes. In fact, pasta comes in a variety of shapes and it also comes in a range of different sizes and colors. Myth: “Italians Just Eat Spaghetti”Īnother extremely common misconception is that Italians eat mostly spaghetti. Of course, Italians have some pasta dishes with meat and eggs (Carbonara), tomato sauce and meat (pasta with ragù, lasagne, pasta al forno) and many types of pasta that have different fillings (agnolotti, tortellini, ravioli, cannelloni) and many, many more.īut these are special preparations, and most of the time Italians will eat a simple plate of pasta with tomato sauce and some parmigiano cheese on top pasta with some vegetables or with a basil pesto. You eat your pasta first, whether it’s spaghetti or something else, and then you eat meatballs (polpetti) if that happens to be your main course for the evening. Why? Well, for one thing, it is not supposed to be one dish, but rather two separate ones.

In fact, they hate this “Americanized” dish. This is important to remember because Italians will NOT eat, for example, spaghetti and meatballs. Therefore, with a little imagination, an Italian could eat pasta every day for a year without ever having the same dish twice! It really is that versatile! Pasta is the First Course in a MealĪnd remember that pasta is considered a “first course” ( primo piatto), so while it holds a venerated place in the Italian cooking traditions, it’s technically not even the main course, which is called “ il secondo piatto.” So then, before you say “how boring to have pasta every day” you must consider that pasta for Italian cuisine is like rice for Asian cuisine: it’s a “neutral” source of complex carbohydrates which can be dressed with nearly any type of sauce, depending on the local traditions and seasonal ingredients that are available. Sure, eating “plain pasta” every single day would be extremely boring.īUT… you are forgetting just how versatile pasta is! There are literally an endless variety of dishes that you can make using pasta, many of which are well-renowned Italian favorites. This could be very true, if you are eating the exact same meal for seven days in a row. You might be struck with the assumption that eating pasta every single day is extremely boring and tiresome. Wouldn’t Pasta Be a Boring Meal to Eat Every Day?

Eating plain pasta