Good morning, starshine! The earth says hello!
(Yawn!) Well, good morn to you and your raspy voice. Where's the coffee?
Brewing, but shan't be much longer. Woohoo!
Yo! Let's turn down the volume a tad, okay? I can see you're in rare form today. What gives?
The sun is shining! Seems like days since it's been clear. Hmmm, i think that's from a song, too... i'll have to look it up when i get done here. Oops! My breakfast pasta is boiling over!
(Patiently waiting, bemused.)
Okay! That's under control now! I should have been in there watching it, but, no. Can't find my clone to take care of such things for me -
Pardon my interruption, but... Breakfast pasta? Is that what you ate in Italy?
Oh, no! Over there, it was croissants, or baguettes, or last night's rolls, served with spreadable cheese or a variety of fruit jellies. In Rome, we had the option of purchasing eggs cooked to order, but by that time, i had grown accustomed to the regular fare.
So... now you have pasta for breakfast?? What's up with that, girrrl? (Grin!)
Well, remember how lonely i was when i returned from Italy? How i had such a time adjusting to being back in my life and my house and my bed?
(Nodding.)
Well, i had told folks in the group that i was planning to cook an Italian meal for my friends here, to share some of the experiences i'd had there.
(More nodding.)
Well, i still plan to do so, eventually. And toward that end, i had decided that making fresh pasta might be too great a task for me alone, so store-bought pasta would be easier. I don't know why i didn't think of the fresh pasta at the store, but i didn't. Instead, i selected three imported dry pastas, all of the same shape (fusilli, because it looks like a party is going on!). I then spent that first Sunday afternoon back in the States running my experiments with them.
Experiments! Oh, do go on!
No, really! I didn't want any bleed-over of taste, so each pasta was cooked in its own pot, with its own stir-strainer, for the designated length of time on its package. As each completed cooking, i would scoop the pasta out with its specific spoon, placing the fusilli on its own plate, then tossing with extra virgin olive oil (evoo, as the cooking shows call it) and some freshly grated parmigiana fetched from Siena. So, then i had three plates of steaming pasta, all prepared and topped in the same manner. Ta dah!
And your results? You surely aren't going to leave it at that??
Hold your horses and don't call me Shirley! hahaha!
You are soooo funny. Not!
Yeah, yeah! (Grin.) You ready for this? Drum roll, please! Of the three imported dry pastas, the one billed as "Italy's #1 Brand of Pasta" was my least favorite, having a doughy internal texture. As an aside, when i next prepared it, i allowed an extra minute of cooking time and that was a big improvement -
Wait aminute! What about the other two in your trials? How were -
They were good, really they were, and i could not detect any differences in aroma, texture, or flavor. One was billed "ORGANIC" from a company in Firenze (Florence to us) and the other was named after a famous Italian and did not have that label addition. So, for the dry pastas, go for the imported, as they do have more taste than do the other ones on the shelf, but no need to pay big bucks for the organic version.
And... did you not even test the supermarket's fresh pasta???
Oh, i did. Of course, i couldn't check the mouth-feel and compare that to the others in my study. Seriously! The pasta was linguini, not fusilli, so the manner in which it is experienced by the tongue and teeth is considerably different from the others tested.
(Quizzical lift of right eyebrow.)
Really! Anywho, i found the fresh pasta to be very good and, surprisingly, comparable in taste and texture to the pici i had made by hand at the Art & Cooking class in Siena. Oh, i see that look! You think i made up a word, don't you? hahaha! Well, i did NOT! "Pici," pronounced "pea chee" with a first syllable stress, is similar to linguini in appearance, but is a rolled pasta, not a flat one. It was a lot of fun to make it, but we had EVERYONE involved, as it is quite labor-intensive if you're going for the quantity needed for almost thirty diners.
What on Earth was i talking 'bout that i ended up here? Hmmm... oh, yeah, pasta for breakfast. Yeah, that's the ticket! So, after my little home-testing, i had all this pasta that needed to be eaten AND i had all this ovine parmigiana which i had brought home with me, so -
Ovine? Really? That cheese you have is from sheep milk? And how is that working out for your lactose-intolerant self?
Yes, indeed, sheep milk, from the sheep grazing on the Tuscan hills around, and under and within, Siena. Offhand, i don't know how the milk sugar content compares to that of the bovine milk, but that doesn't even figure into the equation. Parmigianna, or parmesan as it's billed in the States, is a hard cheese, so the lactose is negligible, if not completely gone. No, no, no, don't you roll your eyes at me!
You're going into chemistry nerd mode, i can just feel it...
... So what if i am? There is NOTHING wrong with that! Not one little thing! Chemistry is all around and within us and working twenty-four seven IN our favor, matters not what bad press it may receive from unenlightened sources. The media seems to mostly tout the bad molecules, but that's the same way it treats people, so i guess that makes it consistent. Consistently aggravating, but consistent.
(Deep breath!) Okay! Next! I was talking about lactose and hard cheeses, wasn't i? Yes, i was. Okay, so you know how cheeses are made, right? Bacteria meet warm milk and get to work? Well, bacteria prefer to eat sugar whenever possible, as it provides easy access to energy, just as it does for us. So the bacteria go after the lactose, as that is milk sugar, as the Latin name tells us. They convert the lactose into lactic acid as time goes by. If sufficient time is allowed, at least nineteen days as my chef friend tells me, then the lactose has all been altered into its easily-digestible form. The older and harder the cheese, the fewer ill effects on the body!
Spontaneous chem lesson over?
Almost! While i was getting those weblinks, i actually USED the first one (!) and found out a bit of information that is contrary to what some of my friends have told me. Mind, none of them are biochemists, but the prevailing concept is that goat's milk has less lactose than does cow's milk. That answer is incorrect! The correct one is: they have the SAME lactose content. In addition, sheep's milk has the same amount of lactose per hundred grams (roughly, one-third cup) as does good ol' cow's milk. And if you think about it, that makes perfect sense. It does! Calves and lambs and kids all have energy needs which must be met for growth of their infant bodies and the only source of that energy is mammal's milk, so to speak.
My first niece and i were talking about lactose in human milk, so i looked that up, too.. To feed human infants, mother's milk contains almost fifty per cent MORE lactose than does the milk of other land-based mammals. Wow!
Wow! No wonder babies grow so quickly!
I know!
Listen, i'd love to stay and chat some more, but i have many things to get done today whilst the sun is shining, so i'm gonna jet. See you later!
Ciao!
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