The True History of Luca Cesari's Pasta | Buchet-Chastel

You thought you knew everything about pasta that has been delighting us for years...

Luca Cesari's book immerses us in a little-known story, tasty and full of surprises, through the ten most popular recipes in Italy: from bolognese to amatriciana, from lasagna to gnocchi.

Did you know that it is in the prose of the poet Horace in the first century B.C. that for the first time there is a reference to pancakes that look like lasagna? Did you know that Alfredo fettuccine served in gold cutlery first conquered America thanks to Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford before making its mark in Rome? Did you know that pesto didn't take its almost final form until 1927? Did you know that pasta recipes only began to appear in cookbooks in the mid-nineteenth century and became established in the mid-twentieth century? That on average pasta was cooked for half an hour at the beginning of the twentieth century and that al dente cooking is recent? That the debate over the use of Parmesan or pecorino, pancetta or guanciale in the carbonara recipe is still claiming victims among gastropurists, not to mention the national scandal when a chef dared to put garlic in amatriciana?

The true history of pasta is both a cultural history of Italy drawn from libraries and cookbooks and a tasty gallery of famous and little-known bon vivants. It's also a book of extravagant recipes; there are many thanks to which you will even learn how to prepare tortellini in the style of the sixteenth century!