This discussion has expanded to include the question of what you do with
leftover egg whites. But there's an easy answer to BOTH of the questions:
Make pasta.

You can make pasta dough using all-purpose flour and egg yolks. What you'll
get is an incredibly rich pasta suitable for matching with a
strongly-flavored ragout.

You can also make pasta dough using egg whites and no egg yolks, but that's
generally made using a fifty-fifty mix of all-purpos and semolina flours.
What you get is a bit austere in taste, which means it matches well with
seafood or mildly-flavored vegetables. According to Mario Batali (and a bit
indirectly from Lidia Bastianich), the most common use for that pasta dough
is strangozzi, though I'd think you could make chitarra-cut noodles or
orechiette just fine.

Bob

"Bob Terwilliger" > ha scritto nel messaggio


> You can make pasta dough using all-purpose flour and egg yolks. What
> you'll get is an incredibly rich pasta suitable for matching with a >
> strongly-flavored ragout.
>

Or just butter and cheese, even better.

though I'd think you could make chitarra-cut noodles or > orechiette just
fine.

Orecchiette are made with flour and hot water, no egg. Many of the pastas
of the far south are made like that, and hand rolled between the palms
noodle shapes are very often hot water pasta, but the names are different
from town to town, let alone from region to region.

Giusi wrote:

> Orecchiette are made with flour and hot water, no egg. Many of the pastas
> of the far south are made like that, and hand rolled between the palms
> noodle shapes are very often hot water pasta, but the names are different
> from town to town, let alone from region to region.

....but you've got to do *something* with the egg whites! Why not put them
into pasta?

The pasta Batali was talking about was from Abruzzo and points south (by
which I'd guess he meant Molise and maybe Apulia). The pasta Bastianich was
talking about was from Spoleto, though as I mentioned, she only indirectly
depicted the pasta being made with egg whites: There was a vignette of a
woman making egg-white pasta in the "Lidia's Italy" episode about
strangozzi, but when Bastianich herself got around to making strangozzi she
only used flour and water.

Bob

"Bob Terwilliger" > ha scritto nel messaggio

> ...but you've got to do *something* with the egg whites! Why not put them>
> into pasta?

Meringues are very very popular here!

> The pasta Batali was talking about was from Abruzzo and points south (by
> which I'd guess he meant Molise and maybe Apulia). The pasta Bastianich
> was talking about was from Spoleto

etc. etc. Of course every cook uses up what there is because it is a
practical country other than driving. What you may be missing is that
neither of those two is actually Italian or living here, although Lidia did
until she was 8 and Mario did for a while.. an extended trip. My DD refused
to let me watch the cooking shows on TV when they were "Italian" because I
was yelling at the screen when I was supposed to be taking care of her
sickly self.

Things are offered up as "real Italian" that may be just one person's idea
or only an interpretation of a tradition.

Is it important? Probably not to many people, but I believe tradition is
taught as tradition and embroideries or modernizations are taught as that
and I also believe that you don't teach those without showing the variation.
Without some feeling for reality and history you end up with terrible messes
passing themselves off as good food. There goes the neighborhood.

Giusi wrote:

> What you may be missing is that neither of those two is actually Italian
> or living here, although Lidia did until she was 8 and Mario did for a
> while.. an extended trip. My DD refused to let me watch the cooking shows
> on TV when they were "Italian" because I was yelling at the screen when I
> was supposed to be taking care of her sickly self.
>
> Things are offered up as "real Italian" that may be just one person's idea
> or only an interpretation of a tradition.
>
> Is it important? Probably not to many people, but I believe tradition is
> taught as tradition and embroideries or modernizations are taught as that
> and I also believe that you don't teach those without showing the
> variation. Without some feeling for reality and history you end up with
> terrible messes passing themselves off as good food. There goes the
> neighborhood.

I can't speak for Lidia Bastianich, but Mario Batali appears to be a
stickler for authenticity: When asked, "Why do you make ___ that way?" his
response is invariably, "Because that's the way it's made by the little old
Italian lady who showed me how to make it."

Bob