During the Renaissance era pasta was known as the staple food of most of the poor families in Italy as it was cheap to prepare and easy to store. With the onset of industralisation, southern Italy in particular Naples became the main centre of pasta production where it was made, dried and exported to many parts of the world. It was also exported with the numerous Italians who emigrated at the turn of the twentieth century.

Pasta translates as dough in Italian made from durum wheat or semolina and water. It is then moulded into different shapes and lengths and dried for 12 to 15 hours before being packaged and sold in food shops all over the world.

There is however another type of pasta, egg pasta or pasta all'uovo where eggs are added to the basic recipe. In contrast egg pasta is richer, tastier and brighter in colour to durum pasta.

There's a whole range of specialist pastas available nowadays. Pasta verde, or green pasta that is pasta where pureed spinach has been worked into the dough. Pasta rosso, or red pasta where tomato puree is kneaded into the dough or pasta alla barbabietole,or pink pasta where pureed beetroot is used. Pasta nero or black pasta is made by adding the ink of cuttlefish. Now wholewheat pasta is available in most specialist shops and larger supermarkets. These specialist pastas do not taste of anything in particular but just enhance the colour of the dish.
Making pasta at home is a very rewarding job, which demands time, patience and muscle. Once you build up your stamina it is easy to prepare. Just follow a simple recipe of flour, salt, eggs and extra virgin olive oil.

The quantities are 100g 00 flour to 1 whole egg to 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil. If you want to you could always invest in a good pasta machine thus eliminating a lot of hard tiresome work and increasing the quantities and varying the shapes.

There are countless varieties of pasta shapes. However there are only about 50 kinds that we use. Manufacturers and chefs seem to opt for their own types of pasta according to their likes and dislikes.

The success of a particular shape depends entirely on its sauce and that is of utmost importance. There are shapes which are used mainly in soups, pasta in brodo.

There's the spaghetti family types which are of the long noodle variety. There are the tubular shapes which are short shapes. There are the fancy shapes group which can be of any shape under the sun, from farfalle to lumache to conchiglie to ruotini.

New shapes are constantly being introduced on the market and you may find different shapes in different regions as they all have their own regional specialities. They all taste the same and it is all a matter of what do you fancy. Then there are the pastas which are stuffed or used to be stuffed and can be stuffed and are stuffed with a variety of fillings from cheese to vegetable to meat or poultry.