Food is design. It is design when you compose plates, but it is amazing, even better and most delightful design when it's about the units.
La comida es diseño. Es diseño, como un todo, en el plato. Pero es un diseño increíble, e incluso más atractivo, si miramos las partes.
[Small thing.]
[Cosa pequeña.]
[Big idea.]
[Idea grande.]
"Pasta" comes from Latin, and it means "paste." It's about putting together water and some powder, so that you can actually shape it. There are cultures in the world that use rice powder, others use soy powder. In Italy, we tend to use durum wheat.
"Pasta" viene del latín y significa "masa". Es una masa de agua y harina que se puede modelar. En el mundo hay culturas que usan harina de arroz, otras usan harina de soja. En Italia solemos usar el trigo candeal.
Pasta existed for centuries, but it really blossomed during the Renaissance. And it's only later on in the 17th century that it became more mass produced.
La pasta existe desde hace siglos, pero floreció durante el Renacimiento. La producción masiva se inició más tarde, en el siglo XVII.
Whenever you design an object of any kind, you think of how you want it to perform. So think about the same for pasta. Do you want it to be ribbed or you want it to be smooth? The ribbed ones absorb the sauce better. Do you want them to be round or do you want them to be square? They have a different feel on the palate. Everything is for a reason.
Al diseñar un objeto de cualquier tipo siempre se piensa en su función. Pensemos la pasta de la misma manera. ¿La queremos acanalada o la queremos lisa? La pasta acanalada absorbe mejor la salsa. ¿La queremos redonda o la queremos cuadrada? El paladar las percibe de manera diferente. Todo tiene una razón detrás.
In the amazing taxonomy of the pasta species, there are many different ways to divide it, but one of the basic divisions is between fresh pasta and dry pasta. Dry pasta is always durum wheat flour and water. Fresh pasta could be either that or it could be flour and eggs. Just think of having a dough that you can shape in any way you want. I mean, really, wouldn't you go crazy?
La variedad de pastas es increíble, hay muchas formas de clasificarlas, pero una distinción básica es entre pasta fresca y seca. La pasta seca siempre es con harina candeal y agua. La pasta fresca se puede hacer del mismo modo, o con harina triple cero y huevo. Imagina tener una masa para modelar a tu antojo. ¿No sería enloquecedor?
So fresh and dry, but then, there's also long and short. And then within those families, there's even more diversity. Let's talk about some really classical types of short pasta.
Entonces, pasta fresca o seca, pero también larga o corta. Y dentro de estas categorías, hay otras variedades. Hablemos de algunos tipos clásicos de pasta corta.
Penne -- we all know them, right? They are cut at a slanted angle, perfect to pick up some of the sauce.
Penne. Todos las conocemos, ¿no? Tienen puntas cortadas en ángulo inclinado, para poder recoger algo de la salsa.
"Farfalle" means "butterflies," or how do you call it here, bow ties, because they are, like, pinched in the middle.
"Farfalle" significa "mariposas", o como lo llaman aquí, moñitos, por su forma, apretadas en el centro.
"Orecchiette" means "little ears," and they're typical from Puglia, and they are delicious.
"Orecchiette" significa "orejitas", típicas de Apulia, son deliciosas.
And "conquilla," shells, and of course, they look like shells. They are ribbed, so they scoop up the sauce on the outside and they are smooth on the inside.
"Conchiglie" conchas, por su semejanza a las conchas de mar. Son acanaladas, así que recogen la salsa por fuera, y son lisas por dentro.
Pasta is definitely gorgeous, but the form also is about how it touches the palate, how it touches the tongue, so it's never just about giving it a shape. When you hone one object across centuries, standards become really, really high.
La pasta es algo maravilloso, pero su forma repercute también en el contacto con el paladar, con la lengua, por eso no solo es una cuestión de forma. Cuando se perfecciona un objeto a lo largo de los siglos se crean estándares muy, muy altos.
Many so-called great designers failed miserably, because they tried to impose a shape onto pasta. The great Philippe Starck tried mandala. Some parts of it, the walls, were very thick, and the others were thinner, so when you would boil the pasta, some of it would be completely mushy while part of it was too crunchy and uncooked. So really wrong, but they were not women from Bologna, they were not chefs from Naples, they were not centuries of families of grandmothers that were trying to improve on the thinness of the walls of the pasta.
Muchos denominados grandes diseñadores fallaron estrepitosamente en su intento por imponer una forma a la pasta. El gran Philippe Starck intentó con la "Mandala", un tipo de pasta con unas paredes muy gruesas, y otras partes más finas, de modo que al cocinar la pasta, en unas partes quedaba muy cocida y en otras partes quedaba crocante o cruda. Un completo desastre, producto no de mujeres boloñesas ni de cocineros napolitanos, ni de siglos de abuelas de familia, empeñadas en mejorar las paredes de la pasta.
There's no way to trace pasta back to one designer, one inventor, and that's the beauty of it. It belongs to the people. And if you think about it, this simple mixture of a carbohydrate and water becomes the scaffold for a whole culture to be built.
No hay manera de atribuir la creación de la pasta a un diseñador o a una inventora, y esa es su gran belleza. Pertenece a la gente. Y si lo piensas, esta mezcla simple de carbohidratos y agua, se ha vuelto parte constitutiva de toda una cultura.