Thanks to the phone call, the spaghetti was a little softer than al dente, but it had not been dealt a mortal blow. I started eating-and thinking.” The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami’s narrator is typical of most non-Italians when it comes to cooking pasta. They know that it ’should be’ cooked al dente, but they’re not going to lose a lot of sleep over it. Al dente is, according to – amongst other – Lidia Bastianich, the famous Italian media cook in America, one of the most difficult concepts in Italian cooking to get across. It is, though, one of the most fundamental.
Why do we say al dente?
There are a number of theories to this, but the most widely accepted and most sensible is simply that the pasta is tested, to see if it’s ready, by biting into it. It should not be uncooked, nor should it be soft – so there should be a slight resistance to the teeth – al dente in Italian.
But why should pasta be cooked al dente?
There are a number of good reasons, apart from simple tradition. Firstly, pasta nearly always interacts with a sauce, and when cooked al dente it ‘takes on’ the sauce more efficiently.
