Don’t fuss over fresh pasta, the dried stuff is better

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From The Atlantic

When I tell people I am opening a pasta restaurant they ask, "Will you make all your own?" And I am intrigued that for so many people it's the automatic assumption. In a way it's so very American, as I find we Americans are always so impressed by and obsessed with technique. I love to make pasta and I think I make a pretty great delicate egg pasta suitable for pappardelle or tagliatelle or ravioli, but it's not the technique that fascinates me—it's the whole dish, all the myriad shapes and sauces and pairings and the multitude of ways that some carbohydrates, perhaps a little protein, and some vegetables make a meal that people can and do live on day in and day out.

I grew up on "dry" pasta. On the menus in the trattorias we ate in, pasta was listed under past'asciutta, dried pasta. At my friends' houses, that was what was served. There was no shame or sense that it wasn't a magnificent thing in itself. In Italy the production of dried pasta is very tightly regulated, so it's a stable and reliable product. So-called "fresh" pasta was something to make at home or buy from a specialty store for special occasions, at least in the more Southern Italian areas of Tuscany and Rome I grew up in. And in my mind, since there is no regulation on how it's made, it's less reliable and often inferior to artisan dried pasta.
Artisan dried pasta is usually made from carefully selected wheat, and the dough is extruded through rough bronze dies that give it a slightly jagged texture. The pasta is then dried over 48 to 72 hours, curing better than it would with a quick blast of heat. The resulting texture is part of what brings balance to the dish. The sauce and a little starch cling to it and bind to hold better as a sauce.

Dried pasta is also a product that can sit in your pantry for a couple of years without too much deterioration and it will basically always cook up the same way. It's got great texture every time, and there's no excuse not to always have it on hand. Somewhere along the line fresh pasta came to be thought of as the better product, and it's not. I would argue that a lot of times it's not really fresh. Fresh pasta is grand when made in the home or by some highly skilled Bolognese chef, but most that is available here and in Italy is made on an industrial scale. Giant machines fill the pastas, seal them, and cut them, and I am not convinced that beautiful delicate egg pasta can ever really hold up to those machines. So the dough is tougher than what you really want in a delicate egg pasta and more often than not I find it kind of gluey.