Tribal People Try Pasta

Pasta is wheat dough shaped, dried and boiled — Italy has hundreds of shapes and a sauce for each. Spaghetti with a tomato sauce, penne, lasagne and mac and cheese are the versions most people meet first.

The first surprise is that it is mild. Village food is built on onion, garlic, ginger and chilli cooked down for an hour; a plate of pasta is often just wheat, tomato, oil and a little cheese, so the first question is usually where the masala is.

The closest thing at home is seviyan or macaroni cooked the Pakistani way — boiled, then fried up with onion, tomato and spices. Plain buttered pasta gets compared to boiled rice without salan.

If you cook it: Salt the water like the sea and stop boiling a minute early; the pasta finishes in the sauce.