Was working on my newsletter and came across some pasta facts I thought would be great here.
Dating back to 1886, De Cecco is a company that is older than modern Italy. Started out of a grain mill in Fara San Martino, close to the Adriatic Sea in the Abruzzo region of Italy, the company is still family run and produces Pasta in this same region.
I was not the first person to discover DeCecco. Frank Sinatra loved their pasta so much that in the 60’s he offered to buy the company for $1M. The family countered with an offer of $7M and he balked.
Most major pasta manufacturers have long switched to using Teflon coated dies or other smooth, precision milled tools. These precision tools lack gaps or crevices, so they last much longer and are less prone to clogging (and also make pasta cheaper to make). The problem is that they cannot create a textured surface on the extruded product. Slick perfect noodles. That’s bad! Each little crack and crevice in a noodle is a perfect spot for sauce to stick.
You can read the whole thing, get Frank Sinatra’s pasta recipe and more (and subscribe if interested) here: [https://considered.substack.com/p/consider-de-cecco-pasta](https://considered.substack.com/p/consider-de-cecco-pasta)
Dining and Cooking