On Food and Cooking

And without a break in the haste and hurry
The stars separate and the hailstones fall.
In the basket, no spattered stuffing.
On the bing not a trace of extra dough.
Perfectly lined up, of great beauty,
Without breaking, the dough is fine and
thin.
It swells so that one can guess at the
stuffing below,
Soft as silk floss in the springtime,
White as autumn silk, cooked just in time.
— Shu Xi, “Ode to Bing,” ca. 300, transl.
Antony Shugaar
The postmedieval evolution of pasta took
place largely in Italy. Pasta makers formed
guilds and made fresh types from soft wheat
flour throughout Italy, dried types from
durum semolina in the south and in Sicily.
Italian cooks developed the distinctive
preparation style called pastasciutta or “dry
pasta,” pasta served as the main component of
the dish, moistened with sauce but not