Store-Bought Boxed Semolina Pasta

In that glorious extravaganza that is Italian pasta cookery homemade egg pasta and factory-made, boxed, semolina pasta have separate roles, but fully equal billing. The components of boxed pasta, and the methods and place of production, are wholly different from those of the homemade variety; its very structure is different, and as one might expect, it performs differently, though not a jot less brilliantly.

Unlike homemade egg pasta, whose various shapes are cut from flat, thin sheets of dough, semolina pasta shapes are extruded; the tough hard-wheat-and-water dough of which they are composed is forced through dies that mold dough into any form desired. The still soft shape is then hardened in controlled drying chambers. Although the best Italian pasta makers—Martelli, Latini, Giuseppe Cocco—are essentially craftsmen, they must work with industrial equipment, and their product, while of the highest quality, is of necessity factory-made.