Is there anyone out there who can possibly explain to me who invented al dente foods? Who was the sadist who decided we should turn off the stove before our food was fully cooked so pasta and rice grains had a hard core? That we ought to not continue boiling them until they are edible? That these typically soft foods should crunch when we eat them so it is like chewing buckshot? I just don’t get it.
No, I do not think these foods should be mushy, but isn’t there a sort of in-between area? Pasta and rice are foods not meant to be heard when masticating (look it up). If Mother Nature had wanted these foods to crunch when eaten, she’d have planted potato chips.
I’ve done a little research — a very little. Dr. Google tells me that this is why we should eat semi-raw pasta: “It is more filling. Given its tougher texture, pasta al dente makes you chew more slowly and eat less. This is because the brain has more time to release hormones that send signals to your brain saying you’re full.”
Oh, please. Seriously? So, to lose weight, we should dine on gravel more suitable for the bottom of an aquarium? And why does everything have to be so scientific these days? We are supposed to think about brain hormones when we’re lusting for dinner? Come on.
When I sit down with a bunch of good friends to a robust, fabulous Italian feast (the best cuisine there is, IMO, which means “in my opinion” for those of us who refuse to live in a world of initials and not full words), do you think for one instant I’m worrying about hormones releasing themselves into my brain so I don’t eat too much? Hardly. When one wants to have a major pig-out of great Italian foods, it is an honor and an obligation to cram down as much as is humanly possible. One is not there to worry about overindulgence, because folks, everyone knows that’s what one does with Italian food.
It’s like a rite of passage (or should I type “ROP”?). One is there to ingest as many calories as possible, and folks as I’m doing that, I have no wish to chomp down on half-cooked pasta or fret about what my rascally brain hormones are doing.
Who thought up this al dente stuff? I think al dente in Italian means “to the tooth” or something, and it’s an apt translation because when one chomps down on semi-cooked rice or pasta it’s like biting down on a tooth. Someone else’s.
Look, I try to be au courant with the foodies in my life, and I’m all for dining up-to-date and properly, but half-cooked food has little appeal to me. Would I want to dine on half-baked Boston cream pie? Or minced avocado pits? Or partially ripe tomatoes or apricots? Rare chicken? Uncooked oatmeal? No. So why can’t I expect my Rice-A-Roni or Chef Boyardee to be fully cooked and not tasting like semi-boiled pine cones?
The way I see it is this: If I wanted to nosh on raw spaghetti or rice, I’d buy a box of it, open it in the car and snack on it all the way home, the way we all do with certain other foods, such as milk chocolate anything. Raw or semi-cooked pasta or rice? No, thanks. Leave that for The Brain Hormone Crowd; TBHC.
LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer.
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