He sits at the table with his chair turned the wrong way around, wearing a black cap and a white sweater. Then he pours milk into his glass, takes a dish of maccheroni and stabs it with his fork as if gutting a wild animal. The pasta looks like spaghetti, but they it’s actually bucatini, which can be considered maccheroni because they’re hollow.
“Maccheroni, you provoked me, now I’m gonna destroy you. I’m gonna eat you up,” he says. It’s one of the most famous scenes from the 1954 classic comedy An American in Rome, one of Italy’s most iconic films. The image of the actor furiously eating that plate of maccheroni often appears on the walls of Italian restaurants abroad and in exhibits of famous photography. This is surely due to Alberto Sordi’s talent, but some credit should go to the maccheroni, perhaps one of the most popular dishes in our tradition.
The history
The word “maccherone” originated in the south of Italy, specifically in Campania. The nickname “mackarone” is attributed to Cava in 1041, contradicting the legend that Marco Polo imported maccherone to Italy on his return from Cathay. The term, however, means different things in different regions. In Abruzzo it signifies the so-called maccheroni alla chitarra, and in Sicily it refers to a special version without a hole in the middle that is served with tomato sauce, mutton and grated caciocavallo cheese. Regardless, it remains one of the most famous pasta shapes in the world, a symbol of past and present traditions, and extremely tasty.
Preparation
To make the classic homemade maccheroni, you need semolina flour made from durum wheat. Start with 14 ounces of flour and 6.7 oz of warm water. Then, you begin. Pour the flour in a volcano shape, make an indentation in the middle and pour a little water into it, then mix the flour into the water gradually. Continue adding warm water and mixing with your hands until all the water has been absorbed. Then turn the dough out onto a rolling board and knead it for at least 10 minutes so that it becomes firm and smooth. Form the dough into a ball, cover it with a clean cloth and let it rest at room temperature for about an hour. Next, remove one small piece of dough at a time and roll it into a cylinder roughly the thickness of a cigarette and cut the cylinder into pieces about 2 inches long. Set it on a skewer and press the skewer gently into the dough, then close the dough around the wood. Set it in the palm of your hand and roll it back and forth until the pasta is round, then very gently remove the skewer from the macaroni noodle and set it on a clean cloth to dry. Continue making macaroni until the dough is gone. Let the maccheroni dry for at least an hour before cooking.