Leave it to a Nobel Prize-winning physicist to tell chefs
how it’s done. Giorgio Parisi, an Italian
theoretical physicist and professor at Sapienza University and winner of the
2021 Nobel prize in Physics, also likes to tinker in the kitchen and thinks he’s
found a thriftier and greener way to make pasta.
Now, if it were a scientist from any
other country, we’d be skeptical, but we know how important pasta is in Italy
and we’re going to trust that this guy knows a thing or two about how to cook
linguini. Still, that did not stop Parisi from enraging Italian chefs with his
hypothesis.
Parisi posted on Facebook that pasta
can be cooked in the passive method, meaning once the water boils and the pasta
has cooked for two minutes, you can cover the pot and shut the heat off for the
remaining time (around eight minutes plus one more to make up for the low heat).
This is a wonderful hack for boiling eggs, so why not pasta?
The scientist's method cuts down on
either gas or electrical energy, saving you money and reducing your carbon footprint a fraction -- a sliver per day -- but if
you are boiling pasta daily, that would be quite an annual energy savings,
especially when paired with other energy-efficient practices around the home.
Antonello Colonna, chef of Italy’s
Michelin-starred restaurant Labico, was outraged saying that the result would be
a pot of rubbery pasta. “I remember it well when at my parent’s house,”
he said. “The gas cylinder went out just as the spaghetti was cooking, and when
that happened, [we] were in trouble because the consistency of the product was
now compromised.”
But the Italian Pasta Association backed up Parisi’s claims, however. This got the conversation going and
other scientists have claimed there’s even more that you can do for a greener
plate of pasta.
For one, giving pasta a cold soak two hours before cooking will
allow you to just do a quick plunge in boiling water to warm it up enough to
eat. Another is reducing the water significantly, especially if you’re
regularly stirring. Lastly, water does not need to be brought to a rolling
boil. You can cook pasta on a lower heat from start to finish and still get a
perfect pot.
So, just like there's more than one way to skin a cat (so to speak), there are plenty of ways to make a pot of good pasta beyond what is traditional. We're hoping Signore Parisi keeps exploring in the kitchen because we're excited to see what other food discoveries he may find!