Nonna Pasta

It's a random morning in 1728, in Italy, a grandma is making pasta for her grandchildren. Her hands deftly move from one ingredient to another. Tomatoes for the tang, garlic for the kick and extra cheese for "you are the best nonna ever!" It is perfection in a pot.

The legendary recipe, written down in a scratchy handwriting, was a family relic and got passed down through generations.

Skip to 2025, you, her great great great great— nevermind, grand niece is trying to recreate that pasta, but could it ever taste like grandma's?

Well, no, and believe me, it has nothing to do with your questionable cooking skills.

Grandma lived in a time where... Let's be honest, breathing wasn't equal to smoking cigarettes. The air was clean and the climate was cooler. The different climate meant a soil microbiome different from what it is now. So can we crack the code to this predicament of pasta?

To understand the science behind this culinary catastrophe, we will be using grandma's cookbook (and a bit of environmental science as well).

So, how exactly was the climate of 1728 different from the climate of 2025? And what does it have to do with the pasta?

Well, climate is one of the main culprits when it comes to the shift in flavours. Theclimate in the 1700s was much cooler than what it is now. The world was going through something called "The Little Ice Age". The global temperature was roughly 1⁰C lower back then which doesn't seem like much on paper, but back then it meant frozen lakes and annoyingly erratic seasons.

Different climates meant different demands for survival. The plants, microbes, and animals, all of them had to adapt themselves accordingly.

That was the climatological part, now let's come to the cookbook.

Grandma's pasta used the following ingredients

Pasta

Meat

Tomatoes

Dairy (butter and cheese)

Salt and Spices

Water

We can divide the ingredients into two categories

1. Plant-based

2. Animal-based

Let's throw the light on the plant-based Ingredients, shall we?

There are many factors which affect the quality and taste of the plant produce, such as genetics, soil quality, water availability, sunlight and temperature, use of pesticides, etc.

Starting with the star of the show, the pasta itself. Pasta is usually made out of mixing durum wheat semolina flour with water or eggs.

The durum wheat used by grandma in the 1700s probably belonged to the Mediterranean landraces (basically, the local varieties). Each village had a slightly different variety suited for local climate, soil and pests. It tasted earthy, nutty and sometimes slightly bitter depending on the variety. Grain had more complexity because of genetic diversity, some kernels were sweeter, some stronger, some bland. On the other hand, the durum wheat grown now is Triticum durum. These are uniform, genetically selected, and often optimized for mechanized agriculture. It's milder, more consistent taste, aroma is less earthy, more neutral.

So, in short, every batch of pasta made by grandma had a stronger taste compared to the batch of pasta you prepared, but, every batch of grandma's pasta would have a slightly different taste depending on where she bought her monthly ration.

The same goes with the tomatoes and spices. The tomatoes used in the 1700s were Solanum lycopersicum, which unlike today's tomatoes, were small, ridged and yellow or orange. They were infamous for being tart and acidic with less sugar. Hence, Grandma's pasta would have the kick of acidity that yours lacks.

The animals went through similar changes as the time went. Selective breeding and hybrid variety of animals led to the emergence of better breeds of livestock. The chickens and goats used for meat back then were, like the plants, local breeds. So, most probably grandma used a breed of the common chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) which was Smaller, gamier, and slower-growing, often taking months to reach market weight, their meat was lean and flavour rich. Today's chickens, on the other hand, are bred into specialized breeds. The one in your pasta? Broilers. Their meat is soft and has a uniform taste but a little on the bland side.

The microbes in the cheese and yoghurt weren't spared from the grimy hands of commercialization as well. The wild strains of lactobacillus, moulds and yeasts used by people are now tamed into pure strains for the commercial production of standardized starters allowing the cheese and yoghurt to have a consistent flavour and texture, and to reduce the spoilage. Back in the days of grandma, the yoghurt was an unpredictable gamble, it could turn out tangy, funky or lumpy, but the one we have today will almost always have a smooth texture.

Grandma's pasta was a blend of ingredients which were unpredictable, just like your mood. They had personality. You, my dear, are stuck with tamed animals, modified plants and isolated strains.

Just like Ship of Theseus, we now have our 'Paddleboat of Pasta': Same Dish New Ingredients. Even if it's not the same, still, grandma would be proud.