Pasta has been basic to the Italian diet for at least a century and a half, and many pasta dishes have origins that go back much further. The enormous growth in pasta's popularity outside of Italy is a phenomenon of recent years. The discovery of its healthful qualities has lead to a burst of innovation and creativity in its pairings with other ingredients.
The purpose of this book is to provide a model of traditional Italian pasta dishes that have stood the test of centuries in Italy. I hope these may give you some guidelines for classic combinations and proper blending of ingredients, so that you can avoid the trial and error of undirected "creativity." Innovation without such guidelines has produced some bizarre combinations that might have temporary shock value, but which don't endure for an educated palate.
As in all cooking - or any creative work, for that matter- a foundation of basic techniques, methods, and information must be established. Some combinations now being touted as new and innovative were in fact rejected ages ago in Italy.
For example, although goat cheese has existed in Italy for thousands of years, there is not a single traditional dish that uses it cooked. This is not because no one has ever thought of cooking it, but because the change in taste and strong smell of the heated cheese has been consciously rejected. It is my opinion that cooked goat cheese is a culinary travesty, with or without pasta.
I cite the example of a more positive guideline. Just about all dishes that combine pasta with zucchini alone require that the vegetable be fried first. Certainly this is the result of centuries of trial and error. Another idea worth pondering is that all dishes combining only shrimp with pasta seem to be from the last fifty years. Why was there a traditional aversion to this combination, and why have a few such dishes come to be accepted in recent regional cooking?
In this book I systematically present and concentrate on some pasta dishes that are especially relevant to current gastronomy-pasta and beans, pasta and vegetables, pasta and fish, and so on-and make comparisons of the various preparations of such combinations in several different regions. For example, the diverse ways of combining pasta with eggplant, in both Sicily and other regions, is interesting in itself and provides us with a fair number of different and all valid recipes. The same is true of other vegetables, beans, fish, and like ingredients.
This is the first of my books in which I am able to emphasize dried pasta recipes and to give recipes incorporating a really large selection of them. Fresh pasta is not overlooked, however, and here you will find many special regional examples. The chapter on fresh pasta provides illustrated techniques for its preparation, though that is not the main thrust of this book. Needless to say, no one book can be complete on the subject of regional pastas. I have included many recipes that as far as I know have not been published before or have been published in versions I consider inauthentic.
Arriving at an authentic version of a recipe with a long tradition requires work. The dish as prepared at one regional restaurant or by one family from an area is not necessarily an authentic version of that region's preparation. It is important to compare many different sources, printed and oral, especially the oldest available ones. Local restaurant versions are often unreliable, and a single family's version may not be typical. Let us not forget that even some Italian grandmothers are poor cooks. Most of all, I have avoided idiosyncratic versions of dishes made by myself or others. You will not find here Spaghetti Caruso or Chicken with Noodles Tetrazzini.
Several other grain dishes such as gran farro, Italian couscous, and gnocchi are included because, aside from being wonderful dishes, they help us understand the evolution of pasta from ancient Roman times. (Marco Polo did not introduce pasta to Italy from China!)
If this book helps you to understand some general principles of pasta selection, or assists you in matching various types of pasta with sauces and knowing which ingredients form appropriate combinations, I will feel I have accomplished my goal and have helped you move on to make your own creations rest on an intelligent, solid basis. The recipes themselves, of course, form a collection of wonderful dishes and need no other justification. I hope you enjoy them.

Giuliano Bugialli, 1988