Sauce that survived Italy’s war on pasta | Hacker News Reader

Sauce that survived Italy’s war on pasta

atlasobscura.com

125 pointsprismatic128 comments

There is an obvious mistake in the article that could be misleading for readers not well versed in 20th century Italian culture and politics.

In the article, it is written :"The essay [Manifesto della cucina futurista] was one of many fascist-leaning Futurist manifestos published in the early 20th century that called for the destruction of the old in favor of the new in fields such as poetry, painting, and cinema".

It is important to keep in mind that Futurism as an artistic, much more than political, movement--but some might say that all art is political anyway--"officially" started in 1909 with the publication of the "Manifesto del Futurismo" in the Figaro, the French newspaper. Fascism, on the other hand, as an organized political movement, started in 1919, after the end of the First World War. The Manifesto della cucina Futurista was written in 1931, but it was, overall, forgettable: much more relevant for art and politics were the pre-WWI manifestos.

Futurism, as a movement of some influence on the Italian cultural life, was already in decline in 1919, in part because some of the best known and liveliest futurist representatives were killed during WWI (Boccioni, Sant'Elia, Erba).

Despite all the problems associated with some of their message--unfortunately those were the most visible and the signature of their political and artistic position--, Futurismo was an avant-garde that saw most of their prediction, or desires, come true. Not many artistic or political movements could say the same.

What is the mistake? After reading your comment I don't see anything wrong with that sentence.

In the article, it is written: "many fascist-leaning Futurist manifestos published in the early 20th century that called for the destruction of the old in favor of the new in fields such as poetry, painting, and cinema"

These Manifesti were not, and could not be, fascist or fascist-leaning because they were all written before the Fascist party was founded by Mussolini in 1919. Mussolini was a socialist until 1914; fascism did not exist as either a movement or a party when most of the Manifesti were published, which makes it impossible for them to be either fascist or fascist-leaning.

The Manifesto della Pittura Futurista [Manifesto of Futurist Painting] was published in 1910. The Manifesto Tecnico della Letteratura Futurista [Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature] was published in 1912. Etc., etc.

You can find all the manifestos here https://futurismo.accademiadellacrusca.org/manifesti.asp

Some of the Manifesti, a bit more than one year ago, were shown at the Center Pompidou in Paris.

But Manifesto della cucina futurista was published in 1931 as you said, so well after the Fascist party was founded. The majority (~65%) of the manifestos in the list you linked were published in 1919 or later.

I guess maybe your point is that since this manifesto movement began before fascism, it's unfair or misleading to call them fascist, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time a political party has co-opted an existing movement and steered it towards a particular ideology. Also, if the party was founded in 1919, surely there must have been fascist-leaning writing in the years leading up to that. Political parties don't just spontaneously appear.

That's what I wrote in my first comment: "The Manifesto della cucina Futurista was written in 1931, but it was, overall, forgettable: much more relevant for art and politics were the pre-WWI manifestos."

So, yes, Manifesti were produced after 1919, but overall there were of low impact, the driving force of the futurist movement had been exhausted with the end of WWI. Similarly, D'Annunzio political and artistic contribution ended with the occupation of Fiume (I greatly recommend reading "La quinta Stagione" by Léon Kochnitzky or "Le mie stagioni" by Giovanni Comisso for entertaining accounts of the occupation of Fiume).

After all, Marinetti had to do something with his life, and what he chose to do was writing increasingly irrelevant stuff.

Fascism just used certain aspects of the message of the Futurists, and the most violent in particular. Mussolini was a pragmatic man, and he used what he needed when he needed it, without particular ideological concerns. For example, he first supported with money and press D'Annunzio and the Occupation of Fiume, but he quickly backpedaled when he understood that the wind was changing direction (many Futurists participated in the Occupation of Fiume).

Futurism had as one the main aspect of their message the destruction of museums, all that was ancient and dusty had to be abandoned; Fascism, on the other hand, was looking at the Roman Empire and the classical world as inspiration and motivation for a great, new Italian empire of sort. I could not find more opposite messages.

As for the comment,

"Also, if the party was founded in 1919, surely there must have been fascist-leaning writing in the years leading up to that. Political parties don't just spontaneously appear."

I disagree. Sure, there are not infinite political orientations that can be proposed, but fascism did not exist either as a word or a movement or a structure idea or message before 1915-1919, and if we group all right-wing, or authoritarian, or "violent" groups as fascists, we are not having an insightful conversation. There are many right-wing movements that are not fascist. Unfortunately, fascist and fascism have become terms of reference for authoritarian or right-wing or nationalist movements.

The trapdoor from socialism to fascism is fascinating.

From one ideological perspective: it's an impossible conversion.

But from a practical perspective: once you've pledged allegiance to greater good absolutely, and set up coercive power structures to enforce same... it's not even a jump to go ahead and centralize management.

> But from a practical perspective: once you've pledged allegiance to greater good absolutely, and set up coercive power structures to enforce same

You’re making the same mistake that is being called out here in the thread.

Mussolini left socialism before the Bolsheviks took power in Russia. There was no precedent for socialist governance at the time.

To say that being a socialist in 1914 meant “pledging yourself to a greater power absolutely” greatly misses the actual historical context in which those parties developed.

My comment was ambivalent as to ultimate socialist governance, and was only opining on the surprisingly frequent path from socialist adherence (in ideals) to fascist government (in actuality).

If you're taking issue with socialism being "pledged allegiance to greater good absolutely" (my words), then how would you characterize its primary beliefs?

Is it that frequent though?

Outside of a few famous examples, eg mussolini, I am not aware of there being significant number of fascist movements/leaders that started out as socialists, outside of the interwar period.

> If you're taking issue with socialism being "pledged allegiance to greater good absolutely" (my words), then how would you characterize its primary beliefs?

Wikipedia has a fair standard definition:

> Socialism is a political philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic and social systems, which are characterised by social ownership of the means of production, with an emphasis on democratic control, such as workers' self-management, as opposed to private ownership.

“Pledged allegiance to the greater good” really only applies to socialist parties that seized power through violent revolution, which is self selecting in a sense. Most of Western Europe has long traditions of socialist parties that entered electoral politics and didn’t advocate Stalinist dictatorship.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

The "greater good" in my point would be "social ownership of the means of production, with an emphasis on democratic control, such as workers' self-management" in the case of socialism.

With adherent's agreement that that should be realized at any cost.

It'd be a nuanced discussion to see how the trajectories of Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Burma, etc. didn't start with some variety of socialism, trend through communism, end up in de facto fascism, and then (mostly) relax back into state-directed capitalism.

> end up in de facto fascism

I’m going to need to know what definition of fascism you’re using here.

"[...] an authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."

Strangely, "corporatism", a distinctive feature of Fascism, is not stated in that definition of Fascism.

It is a stretch to call those states “de facto fascist” under that definition. Particularly under these points:

> belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race

It seems more so that you are reducing facism down to authoritarianism, and therefore authoritarian communist states share behaviors in common with authoritarian fascist states. However, the notion that authoritarianism resembles authoritarianism isn’t particularly notable.

At least Russia (Russian), China (Han), and Burma have looong had very serious racial superiority concepts encoded into their governments.

North Korea and Juche are a bit of a weird case. And Cuba and Vietnam were very multi-ethnic or tolerant to start.

So is Facism futurist?

Side note: the reason pasta sauces made with canned tomato base taste so much better than pasta sauce from scratch is that the water taken out from the canned stuff is done with a vaccum evaporizer: it’s able to boil out the water at a temp of 140F vs 212F on a stove top. Less heat == more flavor

Tom Colicchio, Thomas Keller, Paul Bertoli and many other chefs have their version of "precious tomatoes", a tomato confit. None of these recipes scale. After many years of struggling with home dehydrators, I bought one of those full sheet pan carts you see in bakeries, enclosed it in nice plywood, added a 1500W wall heater, brewery temperature regulator, and a crawl space fan that looks like it belongs in a stereo rack. The top and bottom sheet pans serve as buffers and spares, but the middle six sheet pans (lined with silpat) can process 60 lbs of heirloom garden tomatoes at a time. We often grow twenty plants and supply family and friends, so this scale is necessary.

We skin, slice, spread onto oiled silpat, salt, and partially dry tomatoes till "gooshy", about 25% of original wet weight. We then vacuum pack 220g or so to a pouch, and store in a chest freezer till needed.

This equipment also makes great southern Italian concentrated tomato paste, "estrattu". My favorite tomatoes for these are dry-farmed Santa Cruz Early Girls, which I'm put up in a blind taste test against any tomato grown in Italy.

Cleanup is pretty easy, on the lawn with an electric pressure washer. This is a good time to give one's molcajete a cleaning too, if the coarse stone has been trapping food.

I can't eat canned tomatoes; I have to avoid tomato dishes in even the fanciest Italian restaurants. It baffles me why no one is doing what I do on a commercial scale to supply their restaurants, selling the extra through Eataly.

Oh my god, not sure if they were specifically that variety but we used to get dry farmed tomatoes from the farmers market in Santa Cruz and they were incredible. Too expensive for me to make a sauce out of at the time, so they just went on bread or with cheeses usually. Really great tomatoes out there. I wonder if I could get a crate shipped...

Can you grow your own tomatoes?

I've also had Californian dry-farmed early girls, and those are definitely the best tomatoes I've ever paid for.

That said, I think home-grown early girls or other small flavorful varieties are equally good even if you can't properly dry-farm them, so long as you can let them stay on the vine until fully ripe.

Not in my current situation, no, but it's a priority if/when that changes.

I'd be interested to hear more about your technique. What were the issues with the dehydrators you tried? Are you pre-boiling to peel skins or do you have some other way? Are you scooping and discarding the "guts" or are your tomatoes dry enough to do whole? Are you blowing air through the heater on the way in to the plywood box, or do you have the heater in the box? What temperature are you drying at, and where are you measuring it?

I've been planning to put up a web site with plans, as most DIY plans out there are rather sketchy. For most DIY engineering projects I have a pretty good idea of the practical physics, but this challenged me and involved some false steps on the way to a working design. What heat and airflow did I need? That was an empirical question, I couldn't find equations that were relevant to practice in this instance.

I have to go to work shortly, I'll try to update this if you check back.

My heat source is a Cadet Com-Pak 1500-Watt 120-Volt Fan Heater, suspended by metal angle irons in a cradle underneath the unit, intake filtered by a generic 12" air filter. I convinced myself that the wood never got hot because of the gap and airflow, but the auto shutoff in the heater itself was too sensitive for me to drive the dehydrator hard. I shorted its thermostat and added my own from Digikey. This allows me to aim for temps up to 145 F without the heater cutting out.

I regulate the temperature using a Ranco Electronic Temperature Control from a beer making supply company.

I regulate airflow using a AIRTITAN T8-N, CRAWL SPACE AND BASEMENT VENTILATOR FAN. Expensive but slick.

The dehydrator operates very effectively if one has outdoor barbecue experience. While I managed to weave the airflow tray to tray, one needs to tend the trays every few hours, and there can be front or back edge effects from a leaky airflow. This is nothing new to anyone comfortable with fires, but frustrating if one expects a perfect abstraction. Believe me, I've thought about redesigns with perfect air mixing, and they all double the size of the unit, which already looks like a washing machine.

The Italian grandmothers making estrattu on tables in the Sicilian sun have to worry about which tables first get afternoon shade. Nothing new here, the issues just take a different form.

This relates to your temperature measurement question. I choose middle locations for both thermostat probes, and I also have two TelTrue analog thermometers. Like BBQ, the idea of a single temperature is misleading. One flies this ship somehow, with better results than I know how to obtain any other way.

Thanks, sounds like a great project. Please add a link here to your web site if you ever make it. I try to check my old comments occasionally, so will probably notice eventually.

In what country are you based?

I've heard from pretty much every cooking source I follow that the reason canned taste better than fresh is because nearly all US tomato varieties sold fresh have been bred for their ability to be picked early, be transported long distances, hit with ethylene gas, and look good in the store. Taste isn't a factor in those tomatoes, in fact the grainy thick inner walls and small flavorful jelly sacks help in transportation. Fresh tomatoes in other country tend to be far better with much bigger jelly sacks.

Canned tomatoes don't have an in store look to worry about and are different varieties. The canning process might help in sauce creation but isn't the main factor in the US

Amen on the US tomato varieties. They ship beautifully, they will sustain any handling gentler than a baseball bat, and they taste like nothing in particular. We eat fresh tomatoes from mid-summer through early fall, when local farms have tomatoes bred to eat rather than to ship.

My mother used to strangely do audits for canneries.

You are correct. All the tomato's that arrive from the field nice and ripe get canned.

A bit of an aside on the canned-tomato piece ;

I exclusively buy Classico Sauce, because for the price of the sauce that you get, you also get an ATLAS Mason Jar... with oz markings as well in the glass...

So for sometimes, $2 you get a 16oz of all sorts of flavors of sauce, and a Mason jar to boot.

Also, since this is HN - the Mason Jar was basically either invented by or perfected by the BALL brothers.

The BALL brothers evolved from inventing the mason jar to making some of the most sophisticated and, I believe, top secret components for a lot of stuff that winds up in orbit...

Is that Classico jar a real mason jar, suitable for canning?

Edit: The Web isn't 100% conclusive on this (e.g., a /r/canning comment will seem to acknowledge generally-accepted wisdom that Classico jars cannot be used for canning, but then someone else will follow up with a comment saying it works for them). But Classico themselves have said that their jars are thinner than canning ones, and also have a coating that's a problem: https://old.reddit.com/r/Canning/comments/gjme5m/testing_out...

I dont use them for canning, sadly, as canning seems too daunting for my cooking skill level ATM...

What I do use them for is drinking glasses, and I make custom leather sleeves for them and give them out as gifts.

I buy Bamboo or Copper lids for them for aesthetics, but I personally just use them to drink from, or to transfer soups/stews (my favorite things to make) to friends and neighbors.

I DO NOT belive they are safe for canning, as I had one shatter after going from hot to cold too quickly, so I do believe they are too thin to can in, sadly.

But I am curious about the coating - hadnt heard that - and need to look into it. Thanks for the heads-up

US.

That being said some of the best canned tomato products are Italian.

The best American canned tomato is Stanislaus - only available to food service companies

That's what I've always heard, but OP's explanation also makes sense.

> pasta sauces made with canned tomato base taste so much better than pasta sauce from scratch

That's a matter of taste, to say the least. You could probably come up with all sorts of metrics that show that canned tomatoes have more of this or that, but pasta sauce made with fresh tomatoes taste like tomatoes, canned tomatoes taste like imitation tomatoes or almost like ketchup in comparison. It sounds like you might've not reduced the fresh tomato sauce enough or something.

I won't deny that I use canned 99.99% of the time though. They win on every metric except taste.

Tomatoes are one of the few exceptions when it comes to canning - they always taste fresher and more tomato like than fresh store bought tomatoes - and are preferred in most recipes.

The third option, would be garden fresh/farm delivered tomatoes - but they have a shelf like of about 3 days and can't handle transport - so the odds of seeing them outside of a farmers market (or your backyard garden) - are next to nil.

It is not the case that canned tomatoes taste fresher at least in my experience. For one they have acidity added - on top of already acidic tomatoes - to reduce the risk of botulism or they're heated in the can which gives them a slightly odd taste, certainly not the same as freshly picked ripe tomatoes.

Maybe I've just only ever had inferior canned tomatoes, or the tomatoes I've grown have been particularly good.

I do think everyone here is making the point that store-bought tomatoes are inferior to canned ones. Home-grown vegetables picked and consumed at the peak of ripeness will always be better than store-bought and artificially ripened, and the likelihood of them being better than canned/frozen is pretty high.

The original top level poster did just say 'from scratch' but I will grant that if 'store bought' is what people are discussing (as the comment I responded to was, I missed the word) that I do agree. That's mainly due to the tomatoes not being bred for flavour or picked long before ripening or stored long term as far as I know, though.

> pasta sauce made with fresh tomatoes taste like tomatoes

That probably only works if you live in a country blessed with actual tomatoes. In Germany e.g. it's not easy to find tomatoes that taste like tomatoes.

Ha sure a matter of taste…BUT i stand by the fact that 99% of people don’t know jack about what tastes good.

As an Italian I find your post quite wrong for so many reasons, most importantly because there's an endless amount of recipes and because in Italy alone we have hundreds of different tomatoes in color, size, sweetness, acidity taste and methods of preparation.

Pasta made with fresh tomatoes is absolutely great and it is ridiculous to even think the opposite. The boiling is only done for some kind of tomatoes and it is done to peel it, heat does not make it lose any flavor.

That's fascinating and all, but vacuum dehydration does in fact preserve volatiles (the same way rotovap vacuum distillation preserves volatiles in liqueurs), and canned tomatoes generally are better than out-of-season fresh tomatoes.

“As an Italian” - eh lots of cultures use tomatoes.

Sure, but we're arguing about an italian dish.

> "Less heat == more flavor"

… And that's why my grandma insisted on an all-day (and sometimes all-night) low temperature simmer for such sauces instead of trying to "boil the life out of it" as she used to put it. You can totally taste the difference though. There's a "richness" to a slow-simmered sauce you just don't get from a hurried boil or any sort of quick thickeners.

Any simmer is probably going to be at a high enough temperature to lose all the same volatiles. 60c (vac dehydrator) to 90c (bare simmer) is a huge jump.

a metaphore for life I suppose

There's huge variation in taste of both canned tomatoes & passata between different brands, and I've made much better pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes than a can. When they've been good, in-season local tomatoes. I've also made worse pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes in winter.

I'm fairly sure the quality of the ingredients will have a much bigger impact than temp.

That said, cooking on a low heat for as long as possible does give you the best results.

But aren't the cans in commercial canning heated to much higher temperatures for preservation? Even if nothing is evaporated.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a canned or jarred sauce that was even close in taste to even the most basic homemade version.

I don't think OP was referring to jarred sauces, rather home-made sauces made using canned (tinned) tomatoes, as opposed to fresh.

The majority of Italian tomato-based sauces call for canned tomatoes.

Canned whole tomatoes used in recipes are not comparable in any way to canned or jarred premade tomato sauce.

Isn't it more that tomatoes are canned when ripe, while fresh tomatoes are ripened after picking.

I think you haven't had good sauce made from scratch.

The key is a base of mushroom broth, with roasted garlic, and good tomatoes.

I don't disagree that a lot of home made sauces don't compare, but done right, traditional recipes are far better.

Don't repeat your thinking in Italy...

Got any recommended recipes to try?

Not a recipe exactly, but... Mushroom broth from a pound of baby Bella. Clove of garlic, confit in oil until brown. Can of Merazano tomatoes. Combine, slow simmer with fresh oregano. Blend, salt to taste.

Better than any can sauce I've had

I happened to buy some mushroom broth powder at an Italian grocery store recently, so maybe I can try using it for this; do you know how that's likely to compare to a broth made from fresh mushrooms?

Thanks. Is there a name for this kind of sauce?

Searching just brings up a bunch of "pasta with mushrooms" dishes, or cream-based mushroom sauces without tomato.

You disagree with the OP about canned tomatoes, and then in your recipe you use.. canned tomatoes?

You're right. I had misread their comment

These huge companies have massive resources, lots of food scientists and labs to throw at the problem. Traditional recipes are nice amateur attempts but surely the Italians don’t expect these to compete with the food-industrial system?

Which problem do you think they're throwing their resources at? Making the sauces taste good? They don't need to make the sauces taste good, because Marketing will just invent a little cartoon Italian grandfather with bushy eyebrows and a straw hat and a little cartoon grandmother with a long dress and her grey hair pinned up in a bun who makes him his dinner, and he'll tell you it's delicious in a comedy (and slightly problematic) accent, and you'll believe him and buy the sauce.

No no no.

The massive resources and food scientists and labs are there to make an inexpensive and highly shelf-stable tomato-based sauce product. It doesn't matter how it tastes, Marketing will fix that, Graphics will do a lovely tomato-and-basil colour scheme for the jar label that evoke the little terraced tomato farms of Campania, and it'll fly off the shelves. Especially when they air the advert where Nonno and Nonna wink at each other across the table with a little sparkle in the air, implying that despite their advanced age they're still at it like knives. That stuff plays like crazy across all the demographics.

And you'll eat it anyway.

I was just yanking that guy’s chain. Was expecting more hate, though!

Would it help if I said "I'm not angry I'm just disappointed"?

> ...He wanted to wean Italy off of foreign wheat imports, which were becoming increasingly difficult to acquire amidst international sanctions and a suffering domestic economy. Rice grew well in Northern Italy, so Mussolini sent free rice samples throughout the country and bombarded Italians with pro-rice propaganda.

How did pasta get so popular if they had to import the wheat? Seems they cannot produce enough for the whole population without imports even now, I would think that would make it expensive over staples thay they can grow themselves.

Romans were importing grain from Egypt in the 0s so I guess Italy has been doing so long it didn't matter.

> How did pasta get so popular if they had to import the wheat?

It didn’t. The population increased and the country didn’t have the wheat-growing regions it would have needed to match.

And pasta is not the only wheat sink, bread and other doughs (e.g. pizza) are generally wheat based as well.

Those are different wheats

You still have to import most of them.

East Asia imports loads of wheat, yet wheat noodle dishes and breads are still popular.

In peacetime, it’s usually better to just import cheap things like grains and focus more on making high value foods. Italy probably makes good money selling their cheese worldwide—they and France are basically synonymous with good, expensive cheese. Nobody will pay a premium for Italian wheat though.

Now, this is just a guess not backed up even by a google search, but being that Italians have been eating pasta since the Middle Ages, I would guess that it has something to do with Northern Italy being part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Umm, northern Italy? Where do you think Rome is?

Rome wasn't part of the HRE for a large part of its existence. The emperor was considered the continuation of the old Roman emperors, and was "holy" because the Pope crowned him.

I'm not an expert on Italian geography or anything but I think of Rome as the beginning of southern Italy. Milan and Turin are the major cities I associate with north Italy.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_in_the_Holy_Rom...

Most Romans would probably frown at you for debating whether Rome is in northern or southern Italy. Rome is at the center of the world, or failing that, at least at the center of Italy!

Ok so then it's definitely not Northern Italy :-)

Well, yes, as the old joke goes, the Holy Roman Empire wasn't holy, wasn't Roman and wasn't an Empire.

Voltaire made that joke in the late 18th century, when the dying HRE had been reduced to a multi-confessional German confederation.

The medieval HRE, especially the Carolingian one, had a much better claim to the titles.

The Carolingian Empire isn't the HRE. The HRE started with the Ottonians.

Wikipedia says that the population of Italy nearly doubled between 1861 and 1936, this despite the fact that there was massive emigration of Italians to places like the United States and Argentina over the same period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Italy

Fun fact, most italian pasta brands use american and canadian grains. We just don't have much wheat, never had it even in ancient times. With EU we produce even less of it as we have benefits to focus on farming other specialties or produce cheese and meat.

The US is the #1 exporter of grain worldwide. Not the #1 producer, not the #1 consumer -- that's China -- but the #1 exporter. So much produced that they can ship more than anyone.

It is a fantastic source of American soft power. And also explains why Americans are so soft around the waist.

Wheat had been the staple food of the Italian peninsula since at least the days of Rome, though the Romans ate bread rather than pasta. It was the staple they could grow themselves.

Specialize and trade. If other regions are really good at farming wheat, why bother farming it yourself when you can produce fish and grapes?

trade is ruled by comparative advantage: If country A is better at producing wheat, and country A is also better at producing fish, country B should focus on producing the one which it is less comparatively bad at producing, and then trade. That will give them the highest GDP/income.

The article mentions the Futurist Cookbook. Wikipedia has more info about it [1], including a link to the freely available Italian text. There is an English translation [2], but that one is not free.

In a sense, espresso coffee is the ultimate Futurist hot drink: made with electricity, high-pressure water and stainless steel, giving energy and the will to perform great deeds. It is no coincidence that it became popular in Fascist Italy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurist_cooking [2] https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/01/21/futurist-cookbook-...

First ingredient: two peeled potatoes

> Prepare the potato water. Boil the potatoes in a pot of salted water until soft. Remove them from the pot and reserve the water, which will be used to thicken the sauce. The potatoes can be used for a different recipe.

later on...

> Add parsley, a spoonful of tomato sauce, and a few spoonfuls of the potato water to the pan. Let the sauce reduce.

> Pour the sauce into a blender and add the anchovies and capers. Blend until thick and smooth. Return the sauce to the pan, adding more potato water if too dry.

This is somewhat upsetting. My dad, a professonial cook, would always deride recipes for their use of thickener -- just cook it longer, or add less liquid to begin with! That could apply here... but the second use for the potato water is to thin the sauce! I'm somewhat skeptical of some cooks' generic advice against adding water to a dish; it's perceived to thin the flavor or whatever. But this? It's just potato water! The flavor is nothing to write home about; just use some freaking water!

And what are we going to do with those two potatoes? Oh, set them aside for some other dish. Here's an idea, don't put this on pasta, make some freaking gnocchi and don't wind up with a pair of moldy boiled potatoes in the back of your refrigerator. And we're making a whole pot of potato water for, what, two or three spoonsful? Why not boil it down, and keep the powder for ready us? Or just... use corn starch, dance on my dad's grave. It will be okay.

And don't even get me started on wasting time to peel the potatoes. Quarter, boil, and the skins slip right off.

The sauce does sound tasty, though.

Starches thicken sauce in a way that's quite different from reducing.

Most Italian sauces end up adding some of the pasta water back in at the end. This is starchy water which has two purposes: both to loosen (thin) the sauce, making it spread out to cover the whole dish, and to thicken the sauce by giving it a slightly gluey texture (unappetizing description, I know) that helps it bind together and stick to the pasta.

These two purposes sound like opposites but are not. A tomato sauce that has simply reduced will be both dense and not bind well to the pasta.

(To be sure, reducing also builds flavor, which is why you first reduce and then add starch water.)

Italian here, also cook amateur, can confirm you're correct 100%. It's also to make tomatoes become sweeter and fight their naturally high acidity.

In naples many put sugar in the sauce. We don't do that 200km north in Rome but it's okay.

Starchy pasta water makes tomatoes taste sweeter?

Starch is essentially sugar.

You can also generally buy potato starch if you are absolutely insistent on it being potatoes, it's not particularly hard to source. (Most Asian grocers will have potato starch, as a baseline.)

Not sure I understand.

If you cook anything for long enough, it will dry out. If you cook tomato sauce with potato water, you will eventually evaporate the water out of the potato water and end up with a mixture of potato starch and water. Potato water was used as a thickener before cornstarch became prevalent.

Secondly, this recipe was made for an audience that largely did not depend on refrigeration. Cold cellar storage, yes, but not refrigeration. So they'd have been using those potatoes for something else.

Corn starch in a corn society, potato starch in a potato society. When I was young, the corn starch was the new thing. Everyone was using potato starch before that. (North Sweden)

Also, there are very different types of potatoes. Some contain much more starch that others. My favourite is Mandelpotatis [1], has much more flavour and a bit more starch than the rest sold on the swedish market.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond_potato

I guess my point is that potato starch used to be the standard of sorts because potatoes can be grown anywhere and stored in cold cellars to last a year. Even my great grandfather in Southeastern Louisiana where the summertime temperatures can reach 38c stored root vegetables in a dark shed covered with earth and sacks for use year-around.

> Or just... use corn starch

I think this may be a remnant of the original recipe, using starch powder for cooking was less popular, I believe.

This is effectively home made potato starch.

It was more fun to write that than attend such details of the historical context.

thickeners are not the same as reducing

About as necessary as a bay leaf, which I have been waging a war against for years…

Sorry you don't understand what bay leaves do.

They are essential to Cajun cooking and I can immediately taste when they're missing, as can most people.

Double blind trial requested.

Take two cups of hot water, steep a couple bay leaves in one, taste. People act like bay leaves are hard to taste, which is strange; they definitely have a taste.

In water, yes. In a flavorful dish, it depends. On the leaves themselves, on the dish, etc

I’ll try it, thanks.

Grocery store bay leaves are tasteless, at least around where I am. Good ones (I get them from Penney’s) are highly flavorful and add a noticeable flavor to soups and sauces. I even found myself thinking that I’d put too much bay leaf in a pot of beans once, it was threatening to overwhelm the other flavors.

I did not now that at leaf denialism was a thing. I use it regularly with roasts and stews, and it’s fine. I can see how one could not like its taste, but going on a crusade or being upset about other people using it sounds a bit much.

Not upset, just joking around about an ingredient that I haven’t personally seen bring a lot of added flavor to a recipe, but given the passionate responses, I might have to reconsider my position.

Fair enough! I can agree to disagree :)

In my experience whenever you have a slow simmering anything and it “feels like something’s missing” – you forgot the bay leaf.

No I have no idea what it actually adds to the flavor. It feels pointless. But skip the leaf and you can always tell.

Like the sibling comment says, make bayleaf tea. Taste it on its own. If you get your bay leaves from the store, you'll probably find it to be incredibly mild. If they're plucked fresh from a bay laurel, there's actual flavor to be had.

try with a large handful of fresh ones... not sad dry ones. you can also taste its tea to learn

In the US, fresh bay leaves are often not the same plant as the dried bay leaves your recipe expects. Find good dried bay leaves, and/or use more than the recipe asks for.

I can't find info on this, can you share something please? I'm skeptical of bone dry ones being preferable in any case (besides needing to have good sourcing then for imported dried ones). they don't dry like oregano does and I don't know that they are so much worse like most non sicilian oregano

I believe that a large handful of fresh leaves would influence flavor. My comment is directed at a single dry bay leaf that I have seen on many occasions.

If you watch Youtubers who do cooking, Ethan Chlebowski recently did a really interesting comparison video [0] between different types of canned tomatoes, mostly to compare San Marzano across brands. As someone who's not much of a cook it was enlightening to see how different tomatoes can have pretty vast differences in taste/texture.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMMFUKibW-c

> Marinetti imagined a world in which Italians absorbed nutrients through pills, freeing mealtime to become a form of performance art enhanced by technology, perfumes, and music.

Marinetti was way ahead of his time, and most probably also out of geographic place. The Silicon Valley of the late 2010s would have been a much better fit.

> The Silicon Valley of the late 2010s would have been a much better fit.

"Marinetti is best known as the author of the first Futurist Manifesto, which was written and published in 1909, and as a co-author of the Fascist Manifesto, in 1919."[1]

Shared without further comment.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Tommaso_Marinetti

He would've been a multi billion CEO making no money but raising infinite VC funds.

Yeah, his brand of techno-fascism would fit right in with the tech-bro culture.

I find this to be an expression of lazy thinking far more than a contribution to the discussion.

On Futurism and Marinetti (and Boccioni, Depero, Sant'Elia) I am probably better informed than others--an interest that began many years ago, in high school, when one of our teachers had us read Marinetti's poem "Zang Tumb Tumb," parole in libertà [words in freedom], and then continued through reading books such as Claudia Salaris's books on Futurism, various biographies of Marinetti (the most popular and entertaining is by Giordano Bruno Guerri, not translated as far as I know) and Boccioni, and visits to museums (some 20 years ago, a number of futurist artifacts, including Boccioni's famous Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, were exhibited in a room of the Tate Gallery in London, accompanied by the music of the Chemical Brothers. It was a formidable experience).

And to me, the techno-fascim of the Futurists has nothing to do with the tech-bro culture. The first group dealt with machines, the second with software (of course, there was no software then, but machines and Futurism were inseparable entities); the first group showed up in theaters and gave "futurist slaps" to the audience, I don't see any of the tech-bros slapping anyone (and it's much better that way); the Futurists went to war and died in battle, the tech-bros drink kombucha.

> the Futurists went to war and died in battle, the tech-bros drink kombucha.

They won't go to battle because the fear of death is way too strong among them (also see the life extension industry also present in SV), but the recent re-connect between SV and the US military complex (which is by definition part of the war business) is way too real.

I don't think it much matters if they're trying to impose fascism by hardware or software. They're still just assholes who want to control you.

> Both Musollini and Marinetti died in the 1940s

Well, technically, -yes-, Mussolini* died in the 1940s… but it wasn’t exactly from natural causes in 1948 or anything….

*note that Atlas Obscura misspells Mussolini

What about Filoppo instead of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti?

I am puzzled by the lack of rigor commonly observed in English writing when it comes to non-English names or non-English words more generally.

I am reading the book "Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling" about Michelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel, and 50% of the Italian words or phrases have errors. What are the editors for?

PS, Mussolini died in 1945, not technically. Technically, or to be precise, he was killed by a group of partigiani.

Cost cuts happened. It has gotten worse the last 20 years at least. Now the writer is supposed to put out texts as fast as possible. Mostly the editor does not have time to look at the text, if there even is an editor.

Technically, all sauces survived Italy’s war on pasta. More accurately, this sauce was the result.

The gravy

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