h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No article on cooking pasta would be complete without this note: my family has recently switched to whole-wheat pasta, which works fine--even though it doesn't hold sauce as well, is a little tough no matter what, and has a slightly wheatish flavor--but the cooking times on the packages are nearly always off. It's usually safe to assume that whole-wheat pasta will take from 2-5 minutes longer than it says on the package, but check at least once a minute after you've hit package time.

Buon appetito!

~Liviana

This is a good point about whole-wheat pasta. I didn't include any infomation on that subject when I wrote the original article because whole-wheat pasta is a wholly false product and is about as Italian as Thai Green Chicken Curry with sticky rice.

I can honestly say that in the whole time I've spent in Italy, I have never seen such a product.

That said though, Italian food is so regional - every 20 miles the accepted method of cooking one dish or another changes completely - that there might just be somewhere in the country that does eat their pasta with whole wheat. But I can't say I've ever found it.

You realize that there is really nothing more traditional? The Italians have been making pasta for much, much longer than white or even semolina flour have been widely available to the middle and lower classes.

Just a thought. But, traditional or not, whole-wheat pasta is on the rise, and it is pasta, and it must be cooked.