[Purrybonker]

Grano Arso!

Ah pasta is pasta - so much hand wringing, for what?

Generally it's just kinda like the bread in the sandwich.

In Italy at the Coop, or moreso the Iper Coop, there are aisles and aisles of dry pasta where shape and size of pasta can be chosen to best deliver flavor from dish to mouth with any particular sauce and to suit any personal preference.

These are all just basically comprised of wheat flour and salt.

"Fresh" pasta adds eggs to the mix for more delicate sauces like an Alfredo.

But Grano Arso pasta, there's an example of some pasta doing magic!

We stumbled upon Grano Arso at Francis F Copolla's very nifty hotel in the southern Italian region of Bascilicata. This is a less affluent and very un-touristy area of Italy.

Story goes that back in the day, the wealthy landowners had the habit of burning off their wheat fields after the grain harvest. Peasants would flock to the burnt-off fields to pickup any left over grains of wheat and use these to make pasta.

The "burnt grains" - "grano arso" made a highly flavored pasta!

This stuff is a real treat and has been an amazing discovery for us.