What is pasta really? Pasta is a food product made from flour, water and sometimes eggs, as well as other ingredients with a wide range of shapes and applications. Where did the name "Makaron" come from? The word comes from Greek and means flour mixed with water.
Italians eat about 26 kilos of pasta per person per year, 3 times more than Americans and 5 times more than Germans.
A total of 5.5 million tons of pasta will be produced in 2016. There are over 300 pasta shapes available on the Italian market, and each region of the country has its favorite form and iconic pasta recipe. The undisputed leaders are 4 iconic pastas: spaghetti, penne, fusilli and rigatoni, which constitute 70% of production. However, the remaining 296 forms are no less important to Italians.
The three most popular pasta dishes are: spaghetti al pomodoro, tagliatelle al ragu (NOT SPAGHETTI AL BOLOGNESE!) and lasagna.
Mantecare: this is one of the secrets of authentic Italian pasta.
The verb mantecare in Italian describes the act of draining the water from pasta one to two minutes before it is ready. You finish cooking the pasta in the sauce until the sauce is absorbed. This is one of the secrets to cooking perfect pasta!
Italy produces approximately 1,432,990 tons of pasta each year.
According to the International Pasta Organization, Italians consume an average of 600 million kilometers of spaghetti per year, and that would be enough to wrap around the entire planet about 15,000 times!