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Italy’s rarest pasta
- chewxy 10y agohave they tried getting chinese la mien chefs to duplicate her work? Also relevant: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299605105_The_Computational_Complexity_of_Chinese_and_Italian_Noodle_Making https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299605105_The_Compu...
- thechao 10y agoIn the spirit of famous-English-chefs-unable-to-make-thin-noodles, here's Gordon Ramsay unable to make la mian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaeyFyQemDw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaeyFyQemDw
- Mithaldu 10y agoDo they always cut his shows such that it's impossible to tell what's going on, or is that one just extra mutilated?
- hwayern 10y agoI'm actually incredibly interested to know if su filindeu is historically linked to la mian in any way (apart from the obvious pasta came from China argument)
- DonaldFisk 10y agoIt didn't come from China: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13760559 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13760559 It's not exactly impossible that both arrived at something similar independently.
- m_mueller 10y agoYour link describes the arabs bringing it to Sicily somewhere around 8th/9th century. So? Do we know they didn't get it from China? Of course Italian pasta is unique, it has had ample time to develop its own culture around it, but I've never seen evidence that the initial idea was born in Italy. It would be a bit like the Japanese claiming they invented Tofu. Well, no, but does it matter?
- jimworm 10y agoWithout knowing exactly what is required for making su filindeu, the video of Paola Abraini looks to me a lot like a la mian maker in training. I wouldn't be too surprised if a la mian chef picks it up right away and starts making su filindeu ten times faster than she does, instantly turning the "rarest pasta in the world" into "a pasta from Sardinia". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHGZLjJ1CAk&t=40s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHGZLjJ1CAk&t=40s
- gondo 10y agoThe name of the pasta in the article is: Su Filindeu
- antouank 10y agoDidn't know there are BBC pages that you cannot see in the UK! http://i.imgur.com/rUaBZPy.jpg http://i.imgur.com/rUaBZPy.jpg
- vilmosi 10y agoThe international part of the BBC is funded by ads. The simplest solution to not make British citizens pay for it is to block it. Apparently.
- gakada 10y agoBlocked in the UK. Can someone help us read our own website? Edit: why is this at -3? You guys are assholes.
- esistgut 10y agoDid you try Google Cache?
- kenny_r 10y agoI found another link [0] to the article at the bbc.co.uk domain but it seems to immediately redirect to the article hosted at bbc.com. [0] www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01gns25
- antirez 10y agoYou downvoted since our machine learning algorithm predicted you were about to call us assholes.
- cheiVia0 10y agoTry any of these: Tor Browser archive.is archive.org Google cache Bing cache Coral cache
- OJFord 10y agoIt's not hosted on "our own website" - our licence fee isn't paying for it, neither is HM Government; hence we cannot read it because the BBC cannot engage in commercial activity - I assume it has ads, or maybe a paywall - in the UK. > BBC WORLDWIDE IS THE MAIN COMMERCIAL ARM AND A WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION (BBC). OUR VISION IS TO BUILD THE BBC'S BRANDS, AUDIENCES, COMMERCIAL RETURNS AND REPUTATION ACROSS THE WORLD. > BBC Worldwide helps keep the Licence Fee as low as possible, returning £222.2m to the BBC in the last financial year, an increase of 17.6% from 2014/15, adjusted for disposals, and equivalent to 13.0% of BBC Television content funding in the year. Why, though, they don't duplicate the content with the IP-restriction instead of paywall/ads/whatever it is, I'm not quite sure.
- ff_ 10y agoAs a Sardinian this is the first time ever I hear of this pasta, and I'm truly shocked of how it's made, it really sounds like lots of work. Now I'm super curious about it, but the preparation in sheep broth and pecorino is one of the best combinations to have with pasta IMHO, very promising. Btw if you've never been to Sardinia make sure you visit at least once in life, you won't regret it :)
- ezequiel-garzon 10y agoAs an aside, if you don't mind, how close is Sardo to Latin? Can you rather easily read Latin texts (assuming you haven't studied Latin, and are proficient in Sardo). Thanks!
- umanwizard 10y agoI've never heard of this language, is it specially known for being particularly close to Latin or something? Why would you expect it to be any more mutually intelligible with Latin than any other modern Latin dialect is? (I mean French, Spanish, etc.)
- mhb 10y agoFrom TFA: Residents here still speak Sardo, the closest living form of Latin.
- umanwizard 10y agoAh, I must have skimmed it too quickly to notice that. Thanks! Anyway, I doubt it is close enough to Latin to be mutually intelligible, as all modern Romance languages are derived from Vulgar Latin, which is known to be very different form the written Classical Latin.
- acjohnson55 10y agoThere are lots of languages you've probably never heard of :). I realized the same when I started to read about the family of Romance languages to learn what the concept was all about. Not being an expert, it does seem to me to be a theme that languages of relatively isolated communities tend to me significantly more conservative in their evolution than in more cosmopolitan communities.
- andy_ppp 10y agoI find it reprehensible that the article is blocked to UK users. BBC worldwide wouldn't exist without license fee payers, yet they feel like they can block content from us.
- x88172 10y agoIf it is any consolation: In Germany people are going to prison because they refuse to pay the mandatory "television tax" despite not having a TV (or any interest in watching the garbage that ARD and ZDF produce). Meanwhile, the top bureaucrats of ARD/ZDF earn salaries in the region of EUR 600000 per year.
- pjc50 10y agoA weird consequence of the BBC charter. The article has ads on it, so they're obliged to adblock it for you. Apparently they gave up maintaining the separate ad-free version: http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/online/website_changes http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/online/website_changes
- andy_ppp 10y agoI'll write in and complain about this for sure; I pay a tax to see and fund the BBCs content and directly or indirectly that pays for BBC worldwide to exist. It's like saying I funded a startup and they did well from that and set up a subsidiary with the money and that subsidiary blocked me because of this. It wouldn't be defensible.
- longwave 10y agoAs this is a link to the BBC, I thought this might be talking about the spaghetti tree incident of 1957: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti-tree_hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti-tree_hoax
- longwave 10y agoGoogle cache to the rescue for UK users: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_Uzr_k0MegUJ:www.bbc.com/travel/story/20161014-the-secret-behind-italys-rarest-pasta http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_Uzr_k0...
- conjectures 10y agoThanks. But more generally WTH? How does their policy make any sense? For non uk people: """BBC Worldwide (International Site) We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com. """
- fredley 10y agoThe BBC is forbidden from undertaking any commercial activity within the UK in their charter. While obviously quite integral to the way the BBC works and is able to work, this is a weird side-effect of that restriction.
- xg15 10y agoReminds me of the situation in Germany, where private publishers and TV networks managed to successfully shoot down some of the better ideas of how to use public television. Result is that public television networks are forbidden to produce in-depth articles accompanying their reports and may only expose free internet access to their shows within tight limits. The compromises reached seem more and more like "you may produce content using public money as long as you make sure the content stays sufficiently sucky".
- fredley 10y agoThe BBC charter is being renewed soon, and there is certainly a faction within Government that is trying to push the BBC in this direction.
- namaemuta 10y agoDo you think the process could be automatized? from my naive perspective, that doesn't seem a tremendously difficult task.
- jstoja 10y agoIt seems to me, but the main question is... would it be useful?
- namaemuta 10y agoIt depends. If people like it or if it gets a status of "haute cuisine", it would be useful (in terms of money) and would solve the problem of people not wanting to do it because of its tediousness.
- gpderetta 10y agoFrom the article: "Last year, a team of engineers from Barilla pasta came to see if they could reproduce her technique with a machine. They couldn’t"
- namaemuta 10y agoMy bad. For some reason I missed that part. When reading it, I thought about another HN post in which a Japanese classified cucumbers using deep learning and thought that maybe that could be applied too to get the right texture and moisture.
- crispyambulance 10y agoI expect it certainly can be automated, but there's an ROI to be considered. If it was just a matter of new dies and some process tweaks using existing machinery, it absolutely would be done and that's likely what the Barilla people were trying for. If new technology has to be developed to match the manual process, that's far a riskier proposition just for the purpose of adding yet another box of pasta in fancy grocery stores. It probably makes far more sense, economically, for a small number of elite chefs to learn and replicate the technique for their restaurants. I am sure folks are trying.
- znpy 10y agoWhat I am about to say is no solution, but: I can't quite understand why don't people don't begin by trying and make a basic YouTube video about this subject. Don't want the tradition to fade? Spread it as much as possible.
- unwind 10y agoSure. Here's Jamie Oliver attempting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHGZLjJ1CAk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHGZLjJ1CAk (this might be the video linked in the article, that one failed for me). It doesn't seem very easy.
- Tobold 10y agoIt's great to see the pasta-making in action, but damn, that guy is annoying.
- Splendor 10y agoWhether that's true or not I don't think your observation adds much to the conversation.
- erikrothoff 10y agoWow, what I nice way to counter the micro aggression of the parent post. Well done, I'll be stealing that.
- gpderetta 10y agoAs per the article, Abraini has been filmed so that the technique can be preserved, at least partially, although it seems hard to replicate.
- 2muchcoffeeman 10y agoThere's a bunch of videos on YouTube showing the technique. They even filmed both remaining practitioners. It appears to be a normal pasta recipe. We know plain water is used. We don't know how heavily salted the salt water is. Perhaps because I can't speak Italian, but I can't find a recipe. If they really want to preserve it they should probably start with that in multiple languages. Then at least we can experiment with the technique without having to make too many guesses. I'm pretty sure we'd figure out the required elasticity fairly quickly.
- ChoHag 10y agohttp://pastebin.com/AZ2kda1e http://pastebin.com/AZ2kda1e Because the BBC can kiss my arse if it thinks anything it produces isn't mine.
- emodendroket 10y agoBit out of the way for me in Massachusetts but looks delicious.
- microcolonel 10y ago>Last year, a team of engineers from Barilla pasta came to see if they could reproduce her technique with a machine. They couldn’t. You can tell that Eliot is a pessimist; because if they couldn't design a mechanism to make this pasta on the first visit, it must be impossible! Admittedly though, it does seem like a lot of work.
- yoz-y 10y agoI find it quite annoying that many outlets (be it articles, TV documentaries or tourist guides) always try to point out how something arcane can not be reproduced by modern technology or that the "knowledge has been lost". But it seems like people like the narrative.
- maxpolun 10y agoSounds like a similar process to hand-pulled cotton candy, just with pasta instead of sugar. here's how to make that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auRNHI2nkIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auRNHI2nkIU
- sua_3000 10y agowhy is this in HN
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- gotofritz 10y agoA lot of embellishments in the article. The pasta can be found at the San Francesco di Lula festival, which can be comfortably reached by car. Only a few pilgrims may do it on foot, some barefoot, as a form of devotion, but these days it's increasingly rarer
- beat 10y agoThis makes me think strongly of Matthew B. Crawford's books ("The World Beyond Your Head", "Shop Class as Soulcraft"). He focuses directly on difficult techniques like this, things that require both intellectual focus and physical technique to master - craftsmanship. He believes that this is the finest work we can do. Pure intellectual abstraction doesn't exercise our minds fully, we need to engage with the physical world and its complexities as well. Think about it - this is so incredibly sensitive to the exact consistency of the pasta dough, it must change by temperature, humidity, time of day, barometric pressure... to make it work, she just has to feel the pasta, to know pasta in a way that can only be done with years of manual effort. That's why they can't build a machine to do it. They can't control the conditions well enough.
- Shivetya 10y agoI fail to believe such a machine cannot be made. I do however believe it may not be economical to do so. If it can be measured then why cannot it be reproduced? None of the values you listed cannot be measured and accounted for. She has three listed ingredients, however I am curious how much perspiration is in the final product, surely her hands impart something through the skin contact. Finally the drying process would have its own effect, after preparing it how much of a difference is there between it and another pasta? What exactly do they consider the differences? Is it purely texture, if so then just the preparation of the final dish can affect what you will perceive
- beat 10y agoYou should read Crawford, then. Read Sidney Dekker's "Drift into Failure" as well. Complexity is the problem. Complex, evolving, interacting conditions. You can't just measure in a vacuum when you have many interacting variables. What you're talking about is the result of the reductionist intellectual tradition. And it's been fantastic at many things - it built our modern world. But it cannot solve every problem. Not everything humans do can be reduced to simple measurement and process.
- davidw 10y agoIf you've never had handmade pasta in Italy, you're missing out. My mother in law makes ravioli by hand for special occasions: * She mixes the flour, water and salt * That is then spread out into sheets with the help of a hand-cranked machine. * She then uses a cutting roller to cut those into the right shapes. * Then the filling (mix of greens) goes into each one by hand and it's closed up. * They get cooked. * At the end they get a healthy bunch of ragù (bolognese meat sauce, if you must) on them. I feel guilty eating them, because it takes hours and hours to do all that, and then it's gone in a few minutes it seems like.
- SubZero 10y agoI make my own pasta and I still feel guilty eating it.
- expression 10y agoMaybe you should gift her with a newer pasta machine. :) Pasta certainly isn't a staple of Finnish cuisine, but through family I have Italian relatives, and my parents have been making handmade pasta since before durum wheat was widely available here (it certainly was a very different world back then). Their hand cranked pasta machine has among other “heads” a tool for ravioli, taking in two sheets of pasta dough and automatically applying contents for each one it cuts. Certainly faster than filling them one by one, can't tell if you can taste the difference. (I really used to like pasta, shame that certain grains and I don't get well together.)
- oh_sigh 10y agoYou can make handmade pasta in any country...
- erikpukinskis 10y ago> I feel guilty eating them If you want to honor her time you shouldn't waste a moment on guilt, you should just let the taste of the pasta linger as long as you can, until it is interrupted by something else besides guilt! You can get back all of those moments she put in by savoring the dish. That's the beauty of well made food: it will tell quite a story in your body if you let it.
- rjdevereux 10y agoVideo of it being made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuRLaO1G5A0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuRLaO1G5A0
- dsjoerg 10y agoThanks for the video, really helps me understand the process. However she's not folding it eight times. A commenter on the video mentions that she's doing it wrong, strings are huge.
- TheRealPomax 10y agoIn that case have some https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKN9MajEVOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKN9MajEVOQ
- FireBeyond 10y ago[deleted] I'm guilty of only reading half the article.
- abritinthebay 10y agoThe article specifically says the two provide it to the restaurants. It's right there in the text, they talk about it for two paragraphs...
- tw04 10y agoRead closer: >Recently, she’s begun making su filindeu for three restaurants in the area – and in the process, offering non-pilgrims a chance to taste it for the first time.
- scythe 10y agoIf I wanted to replicate this, I'd try to get a machine to make the strands and then lay them by hand. Laying pasta that thin in an accurate way with a robotic arm requires amazing computer vision and such, but pulling dough in exactly this certain way is machineworthy.
- hexane360 10y agoI'd almost expect the opposite. According to the article, most of the difficult comes from managing the consistency of the dough. Salt water and water need to be added throughout the pulling process to prevent tearing. The laying process could probably be achieved by a loom-like machine: thread the string around knobs at the edge of the disc, and then cut around the outside.
- amorphid 10y agoIs there some sort of 3D printer for pasta?
- kolokolo 10y agoAnd all I can think of is stupid greentext about Pepe.
- vinayan3 10y agoWith all the talk of the loss of manufacturing jobs maybe they can instead talk about making this pasta. It might get some people to start producing it in the US.
- eliot_stein 10y agoHello! Author of the story here. Really appreciate all the interest and wanted to jump in on a few questions in the thread. Taste? It's delicious. The pasta is so thin that it really melts in your mouth. I've tasted it many times now and think that the trick is to not put in too much pecorino. Sardo? As many Sardi on this thread have correctly pointed out, Sardo is a separate language from Italian, as opposed to a dialect. Like Italian, Romansch, and Spanish, it's rooted in Latin. There are many variations of it and each region speaks a different version. Barbaricino (what they speak around Nuoro) is considered the least Italian-ized version of it. There are more than 500 words that are nearly identical to Latin (domus, janna, etc) with more distant words (stemming from Sardinia's earliest indigenous population) that often refer to geological formations or animals (giara, marxani, nuraghe, etc).