Celebrate Everyday pt. 25

spaghetti... macaroni... linguine... fettuccine... manicotti... ravioli... tortellini... lasagne... penne... rigatoni...

It's World Pasta Day!

It's a day for celebrating the "inner Italian",

bursting out in a love song, and talking with an accent!

Pasta is a world renown Italian food. It has been used as a staple in their cuisine for centuries. The pasta is made out of flour, water, and sometimes eggs. Traditionally, pasta is used as a base for any number of kinds of sauces and toppings. Pasta includes a variety of shapes and sizes, from the large cyclical manicotti to the delicately thin angel hair past.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasta
Here are some fun facts about pasta:

• Thomas Jefferson is credited with introducing macaroni to the United States. It seems that he fell in love with a certain dish he sampled in Naples, while serving as the U.S. Ambassador to France. In fact, he promptly ordered crates of "macaroni," along with a pasta-making machine, sent back to the States.



• The first American pasta factory was opened in Brooklyn, New York, in 1848, by a Frenchman named Antoine Zerega. Mr. Zerega managed the entire operation with just one horse in his basement to power the machinery. To dry his spaghetti, he placed strands of the pasta on the roof to dry in the sunshine.



• During the 1980s, macaroni, which was traditionally considered a "blue-collar" down-home meal, was transformed into the more upscale "pasta." As more and more people began to have fun with it and romanticize it throughout the '60s and '70s, its image began to change along with its name.



• There are more than 600 pasta shapes produced worldwide.



• Pasta is found in the will of Ponzio Baestone, a Genoan soldier who requested "bariscella peina de macarone" - a small basket of macaroni

http://www.kitchenhelpfulhints.com/pasta/pasta-facts.htm

Enjoy your pasta today!