February 2009

Wine Club Wednesday

The next wine tasting evening is Wednesday 25th February from 7.30pm. Booking is required as these evenings are already becoming popular.

This month's format will once again be informal with a good selection of 8 wines from Europe, a Tunisian wine and a Californian wine. This month we will be tasting

Anlivia Verdejo (Spain)
Salterio Alberino (Spain)
St Orsola Fiano (Italy)
Bourgogne Chardonnay Clos de Loyse Louis Jadot (Burgundy)
Torres Milmanda Chardonnay (Spain)
Kendermann Pinot Noir (Germany)
Selian Carignan (Tunisia)
Chateau Teyssier (St Emillion)
Chateau Citran (Haut Medoc)
Estancia Pinot Noir (California)

As part of our continual review process of our menus, we had a fantastic in-house tasting of some fabulous South African wines and one or two will be making their way onto our wine list in the near future. We will also run a South African wine tasting evening in the near future so you can also sample the delights this region has to offer!

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The Story of Pasta

Pasta (Italian for "dough") is a generic term for Italian variants of noodles, food made from a dough of flour, water and/or eggs, that is boiled. The word can also denote dishes in which pasta products are the primary ingredient, served with sauce or seasonings.

Ingredients

Pasta is made from a simple combination of flour and water. Pre-packaged speciality pasta often includes spices, cheese or added coloring from spinach, tomatoes or food dye.

Under Italian law, dry pasta (pasta secca) can only be made from durum wheat flour or durum wheat semolina. Durum flour and durum semolina have a yellow tinge in color. Italian pasta is traditionally cooked al dente (Italian: "to the tooth", meaning not too soft). Abroad, dry pasta is frequently made from other types of flour (such as wheat flour), but this yields a softer product which cannot be cooked al dente.

Particular varieties of pasta may also use other grains and milling methods to make the flour, as specified by law. Some pasta varieties, such as Pizzoccheri, are made from buckwheat flour. Fresh pasta may include eggs (pasta all'uovo). Some specialty pasta varieties can be made from spelt or other grains low in gluten for gluten-intolerant people, or from whole wheat flour. Gnocchi are often listed among pasta dishes, although they are quite different in ingredients (mainly milled potatoes) and therefore can't be called pasta because they don't contain flour.

History

Although Italy is now the home of pasta, its origins are a little more hazy. It is well known that the Chinese were eating noodles made of millet as long ago as 2000 BC. This was confirmed by the discovery of a well-preserved bowl of millet noodles over 4000 years old. However, durum wheat was not known in China until later times so we need to look further afield.

Durum wheat is thought to have originated in either Abyssinia or southern parts of the Mediterranean basin. Records show that it was in cultivation in Byzantine Egypt; however, there is not yet evidence that it was grown elsewhere, as it is not mentioned in late classical works on farming, natural history, geography or medicine.

With the rise of Islam, the crop diffused rapidly throughout the Middle East, the Maghreb of North Africa, and Muslim Spain. In some parts of the Muslim Mediterranean, durum was the only wheat grown. New varieties appeared in the Maghreb, Yemen and Central Asia. The wheat was also grown by Muslims during their habitation of medieval Southern Italy, particularly at Lucera during the thirteenth century.

So it would appear that durum wheat, and thus pasta as it is known today, was introduced by Arabs during their habitation of Sicily.

[And in case you were wondering - yes, we do stock a wide variety of hand-made artisan pasta in the deli, including organic spelt, rye, durham wheat, plain and coloured]

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