Green Bean

Pasta is easy to make. Essentially it is flour and water kneaded to stretch and join the strands of protein and form a silky, elastic dough. If the flour is weak, or if a stronger, richer dough is required, then the water can be substituted with an egg. The worked mixture has a noble character; cool, weighty and firm yet sensuous, delicate and responsive. Under the rolling pin it stretches out impressively wide and thin.

Millions of generations of Italian enthusiasm for this simplest of formulas has led to its punctilious refinement. At the same time there is a bewildering variety of cuts, forms and shapes. There's everything from angel's hair and little ears to butterflies and worms and that’s before getting started on the sauces and fillings.

The complexity of Pasta in the Italian psyche is enough to justify the military discipline experienced in the kitchen when it comes to the size of pan, the boiling of the perfectly salted water and the judgement of cooking time. Comparing recipes can animate and divide dining strangers for hours. Having to squeeze its cultural history into a dozen hours of lectures will bring tears of desperation to a Professor’s eyes. The importance of pasta to Italians, in short, renders these most communicative of people lost for words. Pasta is gloriously, simply lived. It is anticipated, made, honoured with the finest of condiments, shared and consumed.

There is much to be appreciated and learned from participating in the ritual of Pasta. But at the same time, perhaps the most important lesson is that with a few ground rules, the simplest ingredients can adapt themselves to a world of diversity. It provides delightful substance to everything from the smallest fish to the heartiest beef and to every season and continent of vegetable. Pasta, its companions and protocols owe practically everything to centuries of historical change and global integration. Italy's is not the world's first combination of flour and water, but certainly one of the most refined, complex and exciting.

Making Pasta is easy - so easy that everyone should try it. You can follow the rules if you like, but the spirit of the game is taking the humblest leap of faith and creating legends out of what can be made at home with the best local ingredients.