A tip or pasta snobs

Cristy

I'm Italian and I've lived in the UK for nine years. All this time, I've never wanted to renounce good quality pasta and, after trying own brand supermarket pasta and realising it was abysmal, I've always stuck with the premium brands - namely De Cecco, 94p per 500g from Sainsburys and Waitrose, even more from Tesco.

Recently, I decided to give supermarket brands another go, as De Cecco seems to be limited availability now. I have tried Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Tesco. What I found is that these days Tesco pasta is of a very, very high quality (the other two are just about ok, with Sainsburys slightly better than Waitrose). What I mean is that it doesn't overcook easily and it retains a good bite. What a pleasant surprise! They have introduced new shapes as well, which you couldn't get in this country before and that I really missed. I have a strong feeling that this pasta is produced by a premium Italian brand and re-branded...

Anyway, the best thing about all this is the price: £1.44 for 3 kg!! 3 kg of De Cecco would have cost me £5.64 - how's that for a saving! Our household consumes rather a lot of pasta so this is really a big saving for us, without compromising on quality.

Anyway, I hope this helps you pasta entendeurs out there!

thriftlady_2

That's interesting Cristy ,as my Italian friend swears by Barilla (Barillia ?).She reckons Tesco's is no good,but maybe she hasn't tasted it recently.

Anyway thanks for the tip and fingers crossed for the match tonight:j

lucylou

Hi I am half italian and moved over from Italy to live in Scotland three years ago.I eat quite a lot of pasta as well and was quite disappointed at the lack of Barilla pasta in the supermarkets.There is a lot of Buitoni pasta and I have tried Tesco pasta last year but I have to admit I don't like it as much as De Cecco or Barilla.I think there was a thread somewhere on shop but don't drop about buying de Cecco in bulk from italy and the price was quite good but my family comes up quite often from Italy so they bring me pasta from there:j .http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=126292&highlight=de+cecco
I found that the best tomato sauce you can get from Asda and it's called Valfrutta and it's only 56p for a big carton.:beer:

Quasar

I'm Italian too, lived here for several years. I also find Tesco pasta acceptable, however I only use wholemeal which remains "al dente" no matter what. Costs a few pence more, but personally I'm happy to pay because it's much healthier as it retains all its fibre and mineral content, plus some vitamins. It took me a while to get used to it, but now I'm glad I did.

Ciao!

Sazbo

That's interesting Quasar, because I use wholemeal pasta too, for the same reasons you do, but didn't want to admit it in Italian company for fear of being told off!

Quasar

Sazbo wrote:

That's interesting Quasar, because I use wholemeal pasta too, for the same reasons you do, but didn't want to admit it in Italian company for fear of being told off!

LOL, my mum (she's in Italy) does not look upon my new habit with much favour, but since I live alone and don't really bother to cook "proper" meals, a quick pasta dish is ideal, and wholemeal packs a punch in terms of essential nutrients. It also contains fewer calories because the fibre content is calorie free, so for the same volume/weight you get less calorie-rich starch. This starch, in turn, is formed by complex sugars which stay in the bloodstream for longer and avoid the many unhealthy consequences of refined starches as found in white pasta/bread.

I value my health above trends and purist cooking. And anyway, "pasta integrale" (wholemeal pasta) is not totally unknown in Italy - it's just that only us enlightened souls are using it at the moment...;)

Ooops... sorry for the lecture...:o

Sazbo

Quasar wrote:

Ooops... sorry for the lecture...:o

Not a lecture at all, Quasar! I try to encourage my dad to use wholemeal pasta - he's type 2 diabetic - because as you say, it's better in terms of regulating blood sugar. So really there is a method to the madness...!

Cristy

That's interesting Cristy ,as my Italian friend swears by Barilla (Barillia ?).She reckons Tesco's is no good,but maybe she hasn't tasted it recently.

I would have told you the same, a month ago! I have no idea when Tesco changed their pasta supplier as the last time I'd tried it before then was back in '97 or '98 :P

There is a lot of Buitoni pasta and I have tried Tesco pasta last year but I have to admit I don't like it as much as De Cecco or Barilla.

Why not give it another go, it's only some 40p for the 500g pack. I would suggest you try their fusilli. They also stock ditalini rigati at the moment, also top quality IMO. And I'm fuss queen when it comes to pasta!

Come on though - you have to admit that us Italians do have a touch of the snob factor when it comes to pasta brands. I had to overcome the mental stumbling block myself, when I was buying pasta with Tesco written on it. LOL!

The bottom line is, if I had to do a blind taste test I might still pick out De Cecco, but I strongly doubt I would favour Barilla over Tesco's (a little overrated if you ask me), and certainly not Buitoni, which is pants. :P

Cristy

lucylou wrote:

I found that the best tomato sauce you can get from Asda and it's called Valfrutta and it's only 56p for a big carton.:beer:

You can get Valfrutta in Waitrose too, and it's not bad at all. However we found the best smooth passata in our opinion is the Cook's Ingredients range from Waitrose (called something like A Small Serving of Passata), and the best roughly chopped passata is Sainsbury's Sugocasa.

The Tesco simple passata in the tetrapack is pretty poor!

Sazbo

Cristy wrote:

I had to overcome the mental stumbling block myself, when I was buying pasta with Tesco written on it. LOL

But overcome it you did, and we've all benefitted! Just wondered, Cristy - do you ever use fresh pasta, or only dried? Pardon the ignorance of a non-Italian!

Cristy

Sazbo wrote:

But overcome it you did, and we've all benefitted! Just wondered, Cristy - do you ever use fresh pasta, or only dried? Pardon the ignorance of a non-Italian!

Mostly dried pasta, but fresh sometimes, too. It's more of a treat Generally speaking the supermarket brands are quite edible, but I came across a couple of exceptions just recently.

Bought some tricolore fresh tagliatelle from Tesco as it was on special offer, it was not very nice IMO - tried to get through it but we had bought so much that in the end I gave up and put it in the bin. It overcooked and reeked of egg (not in a good way!).

Also Waitrose cappelletti, tried both the meat and sundried tomato variety, and it was just - yeuch. My DH thinks it is OK though!

I like Sainsbury's own brand tortelloni, the ones I've tried were very tasty. But I've noticed that now you can get Rana tortelloni in some of the bigger supermarkets, and that is genuine quality stuff (2 for 1 at Sainsbury's right now BTW!!) so hopefully we'll be buying more of that in the future (with the money saved thanks to Tesco )