Pasta Problem

tiff

I reckon you must live in the North, beans at 3p a can around here are unheard of! LOL

moggins

Nope only in good old Gloucester, they're not 3p anymore unfortunately but they certainly were when the Lidl store first opened. Everywhere reduced their beans to 3p to try and compete, it was great for us consumers

Caterina

I can certainly vouch for the fact that Italians use dried pasta more than homemade fresh pasta (being one of those creatures myself, albeit turning very English in my frugal ways - but not in my accent! :-)) (How the 'eck you put a smilie in the body of the message instead of near the title?)

The difference is that Italian dried pasta is usually of very good quality, even the generic ones and non-brand ones. My mother swears by De Cecco but they are very expensive, I have found no difference with the non-brand ones. BUT: the value pasta is NOT THE SAME THING! It does not cook very well at all and does not keep the right consistency.

The only value pasta worth having is spaghetti because you can break them in small bits for soup and then will not know the difference, in fact a bit of pappy spaghetti in soup is better than al dente spaghetti in soup!

Before I married a Scotsman (first husband, a long time ago, no longer married to him now), I used to think that powdered mash is just the same as regular mashed potatoes. Oh boy, did he have something to say about that! He educated me in the various uses of different varieties of potatoes. He knews his potatoes by name and surname, no less.

Maybe this is the same with Italians and pasta, maybe you have to be Italian to know the difference at all....go figure!

Caterina

MATH

moggins wrote:

Nope only in good old Gloucester, they're not 3p anymore unfortunately but they certainly were when the Lidl store first opened. Everywhere reduced their beans to 3p to try and compete, it was great for us consumers

Why arn't you buying them up by the shed load? I can feel an EBAY moment coming on;)

Galtizz

Caterina wrote:

(How the 'eck you put a smilie in the body of the message instead of near the title?)

Click on the very pale and pasty looking smiley above where you write the reply. It is next the the big A which changes the font colour.

:j <

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He's shouting, 'over here!'

moggins

Thanks Caterina, that's what I was trying to say without sounding too 'foody'. Value pasta just doesn't cook the same as good pasta, I'm not Italian but even I can tell the difference. It doesn't look the same or taste the same. It constantly sticks together or to my pan and as my pans are the best quality you can get and nothing else sticks to them I know it's not that.

I'm quite happy buying value anything else, in fact I'm a great fan of the value beans when not everyone is, but if I can make 1lb fresh pasta in about 20 minutes with about 30p worth of ingredients then I'm happy to make the effort.

I'm a SAHM, it's not like I have anything better to do, is it?