weekend food - pasta recipe - A Socratic Pasta definition (with tomato sauce)

 

A Socratic Definition: What is Pasta?
“The rest of the world lives to eat, while I eat to live.”

 

 

Ingredients:

Before listing the ingredients, let’s figure out what pasta really is.
What is Pasta? The word itself refers to only one part of the dish, the starchy food product you boil then cover with sauce, so why use that one word to describe a dish that in reality is the combination of several unrelated ingredients? Moreover, even the specifically Pasta part of the dish comes in many different forms, shapes and sizes, all with different names of their own, such as rigatoni, fusilli, farfalle, spaghetti, linguini, strozzapreti, trofie... Some claim that the flour base of this food product is what unites the group, but what about gnocchi? A Pasta made from potatoes certainly doesn’t belong to such a group, so I repeat, what is Pasta really?

Student: Perhaps you’re confusing terms, master. Pasta is not the same thing as A Pasta. Pasta refers to a starchy food product based on flour or potatoes that must be boiled before eating while A Pasta refers to a food group that is Pasta based in which a sauce is added before consumption.

OK. Even if for the sake of argument I were to accept your sloppy but practical definition of Pasta, the term A Pasta is not convincing. What unites this group? What does it have necessarily in common? What, as a group, does it by definition exclude? The way I see it, the most common form of A Pasta includes tomato, olive oil, onion, basil and salt. But A Pasta can come with a cream based sauce or a meat based sauce as well. It seems you can throw anything on Pasta -- vegetables, butter, seafood -- and call it A Pasta. But an unlimited range of possibility can not be used as a definition as, by definition, a definition must include and exclude certain qualities, characteristics and possibilities.
The infinite possibility of A Pasta means that we don’t know what it really is, and without a definition we can’t even begin to discuss the merits or morality of making A Pasta. I therefore suggest further study and much caution before throwing around recipes.

- by Susan Cook

 

The recipe: Take a vacation through the Italian countryside, having dinner in a different trattoria every night. By the end of the trip you’ll have forgotten the question. Serve with plenty of Greek red. If that's not an option...try this vegetarian variation:

6 vine tomatoes
16 small 'date' or cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon of tomato concentrate
1 medium sized scallion 
Salt
Pepper
Unsalted butter
Sugar
Honey
Bicarbonate of soda (pure)
A good bunch, handful, of basil leaves
200 grams of spaghettini
Serves 2

It's the easiest thing in the world, and delicious. 'Butter and Gold', they call it in Italy, 'burro e oro' and you can make it many ways. Slice the tomatoes in two and squeeze their juice into a blender, then put all the tomatoes and the scallion in and, well, push a button to cup - in the blender, then another button to meld into a sauce. In the blender. (The blender option, however, you might want to exclude if you can find good, rich scented tomatoes in season. Blending tomatoes substantially alters and diminishes their flavor. But reduces prep time by, oh, 80 percent.) 

Place a big pot of salted water on to boil and add the spaghettini. Meantime, pour the stuff in the blender into a pan and heat it up, add salt, a dash of sodium bicarbonate, a dash of sugar (or later a teaspoon of honey) and finally a bit of tomato paste. Stir, let the sauce thicken and when the pasta is a couple minutes from being done, taste the sauce, adjust for sweetness and flavor, turn off the heat and add some shredded basil and a few pats of butter then stir. Drain the pasta, place directly into serving bowls, add a pat of butter on top and then generously ladle the sauce over the noodles. It's sensible, simple and satisfying and requires no meat. Drink...whatever you want - but don't hurt yourself. Or anything else. And take your time enjoying the pasta - you're not on trial.   

link: socrates and others on going vegetarian: http://www.changeforayear.com/2013/02/19/socrates-buddha-einstein-and-others-on-going-vegan/