A World of Pasta

On Monday 27^th, at Piazza Italia in Beijing, an important evant entirely dedicated to one of the most famous Italian product in the World, namely pasta, was organised.

Formed by the joint efforts of the Italian Embassy, the Italian Institute of Culture and the China-Italy Chamber of Commerce, it proved to be a great opportunity for a journey into the origins of this basic great food, spanning all the way from the past to todays market and its evolution in the making.

As it can be deduced from the title, the event comprised a global and complete analysis of pasta, in full spirit with the parallel Chinese "noodles" tradition- with it being as old as the Italian one. What is more interesting is that, albeit independently, they both evolved parallely during the course of thousands of years. The results exemplify the expressions of the two different and ancient cultures, giving rise to nonetheless, two formidable products.

The event opened with a conference called "Science, Diet  and Industry of Pasta in Italy and in China", introduced by Giuseppe Rao from the scientific and technological office of the Italian Embassy and moderated by Dai Aiqun, a journalist and gourmet. The speakers were: Marina Carcea, from the Ministry of Agricolture, Food and Forest; Cai Li, from the PRC Agricoltural Ministry; Silvano Serventi, author of the book "La Pasta. History and culture of a universal food"; Wang Hai, from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Engineering; Davide Cucino, China-Italy Chamber of Commerce Chairman; Huang Yong Song, publisher and expert of Chinese traditional culture, and the conclusions were from the Italian Ambassador H.E. Riccardo Sessa.

The conference was followed by a cooking show held from a Chinese chef, who proposed some Shanxi traditional dishes, and an Italian one, who cooked some classics from the Italian best tradition. Of course, every dish prepared by the two chefs was ready to taste for every participant, paired with a glass of Italian wine.

Finally, we are glad to thank every one of the one-hundred guests who joined the event, all the media who covered it and, above all, our two sponsors, which with their precious help had made everything possible: Buonitalia and Delverde.