This article is adapted from the April 5, 2025, edition of Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Things newsletter. You can sign up here. “It’s a very interesting question to ask, right? How do you define a pasta?” says Amay Borle, a research chef based in Berlin, Germany. “Would you eat, in Italy, a pasta with bread?” “Italian-Americans would,” I reply, thinking of my own family dinners. “Italian-Americans would,” Amay agrees. “But not Italians, right? For Italians it’s the primo, and the second course would normally be meat. Italian-Americans kind of mash that…
