Pasta

Back in March I found that I was developing new distaste for plastic packets, even when though they might be tiny sachets. This has since grown, but it's like Catholic Guilt - it's a constant background level of bad feeling in the goldilocks zone: strong enough to allow wallowing, but not so strong that there's danger of being spurred into action.

So it has been for pasta packaging:

The packaging has a recycling number on it, so the guilt as been assuaged enough to prevent a boycott for six months or so. But every time I open a packet, there's a pang of Eco Guilt.

Eventually, these pangs accumulated enough to power up my 'consumer muscle', and I decided to choose a more expensive product, because it comes in a cardboard box.

Yes, paper/cardboard production is also a shitty, contaminating process, but at least once this packet is empty, it's likely to not exist any more in a year's time; we can even compost it ourselves to be sure of it's fate.

Solved!

Right?

But it costs more money, and this is actually the kind of thing that, in the olden days, people didn't buy in a packet, they made it.

I'd assumed it's a complicated, fiddly process to make pasta - people talk about buying a machine for it that sits unused in the cupboard because making pasta is a total pain.

But seeing as I'm married to someone whose Italian father periodically makes his own pasta because it tastes better, I came to know that, far from being relegated to the olden days, people still do this in the 21st century! And I could also see first-hand how much effort it is. And frankly, it didn't seem that bad.

In fact, if you ask me, looks to be what Argentines call a boludéz (or maybe pavada would be more accurate); something that is so quick and easy doesn't require the least effort. You don't even need a machine!

Here's what's involved:

1. Add 2 eggs to 250g flour
2. Mix it up until it looks like yellowish play-dough
3. Fold and squash it for a while
4. Roll it really flat with a rolling pin
5. Cut it into strips or whatever shape you like

That's it! Two ingredients mixed together, flattened, and then cut up!

After my very first attempt turned out to be actually quite convincing, I began to wonder why people spend money on pasta at all.  It's a boludéz to make!

Then my birthday rolled around, and my opportunistic wife bought me the famous pasta machine.  Which makes pasta even more convincingly, and saves my (wife's) rolling pin from wearing out.