Opinicus wrote:

> Coming from a family one side of which is (southern) Italian, I
> know a great deal about pasta, having consumed, cooked, and made
> huge quantities of it in my younger days. In our family pasta was
> always cooked "al dente" and pasta that was even a bit beyond "al
> dente" was rejected. Watching a lot of cooking shows on TV nowadays
> I see them cooking the pasta "al dente" and then they dump this
> carefully cooked pasta into a pan containing the sauce and proceed
> to expose it to heat for another 5-10 minutes! Doesn't this turn it
> into mush? Where and when did this vile technique develop?

It's a commie plot.

Actually, it has some currency in Italy, but done a bit differently.
The appropriate pasta for the dish is undercooked and finished,
briefly, in the sauce. Not for anything approaching 10 minutes, though.

The premise is that the sauce will penetrate the pasta and thereby
make the whole thing more tasty. In the US, it's based on the notion
that actually tasting the pasta is not a good thing. In Italy, it's
based on the notion of cramming more flavor into each mouthful.

Pastorio