There were two bags of flour in the middle of the table. Laura, who was teaching me how to make a pasta shape called strascinati, unrolled the tops of the bags, which sent puffs of white into the air. She then suggested I put my right hand in one bag and my left in the other. Enjoying the lucky dip approach, I put one hand into smooth almost-silkiness. That was grano tenero, or soft wheat flour, Laura explained, as she poured us tea. My other hand, meanwhile, met something completely different, granular, and sandy – grano duro, hard or durum wheat flour, she noted, as I lifted my hands out of the bags. I was familiar with both, but had never studied them side by side. Two wheats, one soft, one hard; one dusty white and smooth, the other rough and sandy yellow. I rubbed both hands on my apron.
The word “pasta” comes from Latin, which borrows from Greek πάστη (paste), or a mix of liquid and flour. Any flour! The universe of pasta includes shapes made from chestnut, acorn, rice, broad bean, chickpea, barley, buckwheat and corn flour. Most shapes, though, are made from one of the two wheat flours: grano tenero, which is often milled to a fine “00” in Italy, and what you need to make fresh egg pasta such as tagliatelle, lasagne and ravioli; or grano duro, the second most cultivated species and toughest variety, the Muhammad Ali of wheat. Yellow in colour, durum wheat’s hardness means it shatters when milled. Ground coarsely, it produces semolina for couscous, soup, breads and puddings. Ground twice, it becomes flour, semola rimacinata in Italian, durum wheat semolina flour in the UK, the legally stipulated flour for all dried pasta shapes. Look at any pasta packet in your cupboard, and the ingredients will be two: durum wheat semolina and water. It’s also the bag you want to stick your hand into to make flour and water pasta at home.
