There are no ‘correct’ recipes when it comes to pasta

A few years ago I was feeling peckish at Catania airport. I wandered over to the main café and spotted – beyond the stacks of panini stuffed with wilting prosciutto – a sign promising pasta. I assumed they’d be doling it out ready-made from a hulking pot, school-canteen style. But no: they were carefully blanching each portion of rigatoni, then finishing it in the sauce (a humble pomodoro). Who cares about foot-tapping customers on the verge of missing their flights? There were more noble priorities.

This national pedantry – more interesting than the British and their tea – has often been mined for comedy. On Instagram you can find reels of vigilante nonnas wincing as some bozo sprinkles parmesan over his spaghetti vongole. And there’s that episode of The Sopranos in which Paulie Walnuts visits the old country and asks for ‘macaroni and gravy’.