The European cookbook for American homes (from Italy, Spain, Portugal and France)

house for the first time in many weeks and fared forth with the intention of divulging his secret to a certain prince who might become his patron. He sniffed the air! — surely, that was his own sauce cooking somewhere. He followed his nose until he came upon a cook in the very act of pouring the rich sauce over a pot of steaming paste. She told him she had bought the recipe from Javanella, who had got it from an angel; that all the rich people in Naples were reveling in it and the king himself had made Javanella a rich woman. Chicho crept back to his attic and could be heard smashing up his mixing machines and experimental kitchen. He was never seen again, but his ghost still haunts the Cortillari. On Hallowe'en he can be heard rolling and rolling his paste while Javanella stirs and stirs the sauce and the devil pokes the fire and grates the cheese. So jealous of their secret recipe were the Neapolitans that it was many years before it spread to the other principalities of Italy, and a whole century passed before a Frenchman got hold of it and took it for the first time beyond the borders of Italy. Naples was the center of macaroni manufacture for so many centuries that the Pompeian Road leading into it was broken to bits by the continuous procession of wagons and trucks hauling in hard wheat and flour to make the staff of life of Southern Italy. Then the town of Gragnano, near Sorrento, set up rival mills and began to supply the whole world with Chicho's flour paste. It had to be made of very hard (durum) wheat, such as is grown in Russia, Algeria, Argentina and America, so gradually Italian pastes became known in these countries and little factories were set up to make them locally. Macaroni is made of moist hard wheat ground to a coarse meal, the free flour is then sifted out and the meal kneaded with hot water into a stiff dough which is squirted under pressure into the machine that forms it. The best quality comes in long pieces that are hung up to dry without breaking, but the poorer grades do not hold together so well, hence they are sold in short, uneven lengths. Good paste is rough in texture, yellowish white and as brittle as glass. It must be elastic and never sticky. Since it absorbs three times its weight in water it swells to double its size when boiled. RAVIOLI PASTE 1V2 cups flour % teaspoon salt r egg, slightly beaten 1 tablespoon cold water Pour flour in a heap on a board, making a depression in the center; drop in the egg, salt and water. With a fork mix a stifl paste and knead. Flour board very lightly and roll out very thin. Cut in two exactly in the center. Let lie five minutes after making sure that the paste is not sticking to the board. 1%. inches apart drop half -teaspoons of one of the following mixtures, on one half the paste. Lift the other half of the sheet of paste and lay on top. With the finger press the two layers together along their lines of contact. And then, with a rotary cutter, cut the raviolis in inch-and-a-quarter squares, leaving the filling in the center of each square. Again press down the edges with the finger to make sure the stuffing does not fall out in cooking. Let stand 15 minutes or more. Drop into a large kettle of rapidly boiling water, and boil 10-12 minutes. Lift out with a skimmer, draining well.