| Pasta Recipes |
Basta Already!
Pasta is one of those incredibly versatile foods that can be incorporated into almost any style of cooking. What would life, I wonder, be like without that luxurious paste of water or egg and flour? This 
author's diet, for sure, would be quite different; I eat pasta at least 4-5 nights a week. While it is generally considered to be "Italian food," pasta is as much at home in America as it is in Italy. And with current food trends pasta is--in my opinion--a near perfect food: it's inexpensive, easy to prepare and healthy.
Once I met a person who claimed not only to dislike pasta, but to actually have a downright disdain for the stuff. When we were introduced and shook hands, I noticed that his palm was clammy 
and eyes were shifty; he was unable to make eye contact. I felt I couldn't trust this pasta-hater. He was, I'm sure, suffering from "pasta deficiency," an ailment curable only with an enormous plate of spaghetti and meatballs topped with grated Parmesan cheese and crushed hot peppers.
Numerous cultures have enjoyed pasta, in one form or another, throughout history. And while many believe that Marco Polo first brought pasta with him when he returned from China, there is 
conclusive evidence that pasta evolved simultaneously in many different areas of the world. Consider the list of nations with their own type of pasta: Pierogi of Eastern Europe, 
spätzle and noodles of Germany, orzo in Greece, cous cous & vermicelli of North Africa and the Middle East, rice noodles of the Far East and of course all of the various pastas of Italy. The Italian varieties, though, are probably the most common form of pasta, especially in the United States. Pasta translates, incidentally, to English as paste, referring to the paste, or dough, of which pasta is made.
Though not of Italian decent, I grew up eating pasta. Back then, when I was a kid, pasta wasn't 
trendy or considered healthy….it was cheap, and it was called spaghetti or macaroni. It wasn't until the food-trendy 80's hit, and pasta became en vogue, that food magazines began to use the word pasta when referring to such common forms of the food as spaghetti 
or linguine. Bear in mind it was only a few decades ago that pasta was thought of as exotic in America. Consider the movie "Enchanted April," which at one point during the film, portrays English tourists in Tuscany struggling with a plate of spaghetti. The pasta was completely foreign to them and it was during this century.
The true genius of pasta is in its simplicity, with a few ingredients pasta can be an entire (and 
nutritious) meal. Pasta e Fagiole and Spaghetti and Meatballs are two examples of the more simple yet popular pasta dishes in American. Both of which were born out of 
necessity when meat was scarce. Beans are a logical substitute for the necessary protein that your body needs, and it is easy to "stretch" the amount of meat in meatballs by adding breadcrumbs and eggs. Pasta is somewhat of a blank canvas to a creative cook; the ingredients 
and combinations are almost limitless. Coincidentally, the word basta translates to English meaning "enough" or "stop" -- remember that the next time someone heaps a huge second helping of pasta on your plate.
