Mae's Real Stories

Noodles, macaroni, and other types of pasta are very delicious. Miriam says that macaroni and cheese is one of her favorite foods. When Arny was a little boy, it was his favorite too. He even liked to eat it for breakfast.

Pasta is made out of dough. Flour, water, and sometimes eggs are the ingredients that you put in pasta. Evelyn and Lenny used to make pasta. They would make the dough in the food processor. Then they rolled pieces of dough through the rollers of our pasta machine. They rolled the dough thinner and thinner. When each piece of dough was thin enough, they would use a cutting blade to make it into noodles. We would put towels over the backs of the chairs, hang the noodles over the towels, and let the noodles dry out for a while. Then we would boil them in a big pot. We made a sauce out of cheese, butter, tomatoes, walnuts, basil, garlic, or other ingredients.

Pasta comes in many shapes and sizes. Long flat pasta is called noodles. Very fat noodles are called lasagne. Macaroni is little tubes of pasta. Bigger tubes are called ziti or penne. Ravioli are little pillows of pasta dough filled with meat, vegetables, or cheese. You can buy shell shapes, ear shapes, spiral shapes, bow ties, or little pasta called orzo.

My mother never made pasta when we were children. Our noodles and macaroni came from the store. But she remembered when her own grandmother (in the photo) used to make noodles to put into chicken noodle soup. Her grandmother did not use a pasta machine. She rolled out the dough and cut it with a knife. One day when my mother was a little girl, she asked her grandmother if she could make noodles too. Her grandmother let her cut just one noodle, but it came out crooked. That night, my mother found the crooked noodle in her soup. A long time ago, mothers and grandmothers didn't like children to help in the kitchen. Things are different now.