In the exhibition al dente: Pasta & Design the HfG-Archiv, Ulm, explore, discuss and approach pasta in its myriad incarnations across a variety of cultural and creative contexts.
But not in context of music.
As so oft, that task falls to Radio smow.......
The (hi)story of pasta is not only lost in the mists of time, but as with all that is similarly lost in those mists, much of that which is presented as fact is more probably myth and legend. And in the case of Marco Polo's place in that (hi)story, advertising.
Yet while it is without question important that a more probable narrative of the (hi)story of pasta is popularly mediated, much as it is important that a more probable narrative of the (hi)story of architecture and design is popularly mediated, one in which all voices are heard and not just the few who currently shout down the centuries, as an object of daily life pasta is also very much about the now, about that pasta that is either in front of you, was just in front of you or is rapidly approaching you.
Pasta in the present, past and future tense that is not only an important foodstuff but culturally significant, instructive and anchored. And always as figuratively satisfyingly delicious and moreish, as it is physically........
As a member of a global family of comestibles crafted from flour and water (and sometimes eggs) formed to a mass and then cooked in boiling water, a member of the so-called Teigwaren family to employ that ever informative German term, pasta is not only an important vittle, but also a unifier, a confirmer that when all is said and done we're all in this together.
Something elegantly illustrated by the pasta e fasule, pasta e fagioli, pasta and beans, of which Dean Martin sings; a dish with a great many regional variations that is not only eaten across Italy but across social and cultural boundaries. Everyone in Italy eats pasta e fasule. And that, invariably, with as much ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling-a-linging of bells, tippy-tippy-tay, tippy-tippy-taying of hearts and dancing of gay tarantellas as Martin claims Amore brings forth.
Whereby Dean Martin sings not of pasta e fasule but of "pasta fazool", an Americanisation of the original Italian, as is the "big pizza pie" to which he refers, a pizza is not a pie, and the deep pan pizza ain't Italian; and thus a celebration by Martin of a standard of Italian cuisine, a standard of Italian culture, in its Americanised form that is not only a reminder, an apposite and timeous reminder, of the importance of Italian society and culture, amongst many other global societies and cultures, to the development of the contemporary USA, but also an argument that we shouldn't be so precious about maintaining a suffocating control of those things we believe define a national identity, rather that we should share them and let others enjoy them, learn from them, explore them, on their terms, and let them develop new associations and meanings. Wouldn't that bring us together much as a pot of pasta e fasule does?
Pasta is universal, but is also regional. Pasta is anonymous, but is also individual. Pasta is private, but is also very personal. For Otl Aicher, co-initator of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm, an important protagonist of design in, then, West Germany, and a committed Schwabe, those peoples of south-western West Germany, the best pasta, the best Teigwaren, was, without question, spätzle.
And while we can't be certain Aicher's fellow Schwabe MC Bruddaal shares that opinion, for as he informs us he is also a big fan of "Mauldauscha", schwäbish ravioli, he is very much a devotee of spätzle, for all spätzle prepared "tschigge, tschigge, tschigge" with a board and scratcher/scraper and not prepared with a spätzle press, and that on the one hand because with a press
"da kommt halt ebbes was andres raus Wie bei dr Boulevard Presse"
"something different, altered, comes out As with the tabloid press",
but primarily because MC Bruddaal is the opinion that, and as with the beats and breaks of his collaborator DJ Toni Disco,
"handg’schabt schmeckt am beschda"
"hand scraped/scratched tastes the best"
And thereby a reminder that all pastas were once handmade, artisanal products before they became industrial goods, an industrialisation of pasta that is not only instructive in understanding the development of human society in the most recent decades, but that was an important medium in that development. In many regards enabled that development, as did so many other industrialisations of craft products. And the associated question one must always pose whether we haven't now gone too far, haven't lost the necessary balance. Balance also necessary on the turntables and the spätzle board.
And while, no, you don't have to find it good that Bruddaal scrapes/scratches spätzle "für di bitt schee bitt schee", you do have to delight in how he plays with that indefensible rap cliche and elegantly turns it into a very polite, bitte schön.
For all the variety of and within pasta, and the very real personal aspect of pasta consumption, in a great many communities and societies "mom's spaghetti" is not only a byword for the pinnacle of cooking excellence, a dish that simply cannot be bettered, but also an epitome of security and comfort; "mom's spaghetti" is as much a space, a location, a place as a dish, a place where all is good and right with the world, where one is cocooned in love.
And Eminem's protagonist has only gone and vomited his "mom's spaghetti" on his sweater.
Physically and figuratively.
An involuntary regurgitation of "mom's spaghetti", "mom's spaghetti" deserting you, that is an ever glorious metaphor for a world falling apart, for what is life without "mom's spaghetti"?
A moment that could be the end of said protagonist; but one that Eminem advises him to capture, to not let pass by, to use to his advantage, to use the emotions, the fears, generated by the loss of "mom's spaghetti", by the physical and figurative distancing from "mom's spaghetti", as motivation to push forward and take his "chance to blow".
An admonishment to us all that in our darkest moments we should never forget "you own it", it doesn't own you. And of the essentiality to always and continously "lose yourself in the music".
Satisfying as 10CCs comparison of life with a soup for which there is no standard recipe, no rules, just a mix of ingredients that in the best cases combine to form a delicately seasoned whole greater than the sum of its parts and in the worst cases is unpalatable, even when "Served up with parmesan cheese", unquestionably is, it is even more satisfying when juxtaposed with, "Death is a cold Lasagne. Suspended in deep freeze".
Not just because of the way they rhyme 'cheese' and 'freeze' and thereby highlight an important incongruity of the English language, but also the comparison of the gioia di vivere inherent in a bowl of (good) minestrone with a dish that is one of the great comfort foods, a dish that transcends the barriers we humans construct by way of making life more difficult than it need be, a dish that is also gioia di vivere, albeit a dish of humanity stuck, hanging, torpid, going nowhere. And that eternally so.
And while, yes, you could take the lasagne out the deep freeze and heat it up, revitalise it, little implies hopelessness and despair quite like the physical and metaphorical eating of a frozen lasagne, little implies a life as suspended in deep freeze, as dead, as a frozen lasagne quite like the physical and metaphorical eating of a frozen lasagne; little implies an existence as "a gourmet in a skid row diner" quite like the physical and metaphorical eating of a frozen lasagne. Lasagne shouldn't be frozen. Lasagne, like life, like minestrone, should be a fresh, ebullient, bubbling hot communal meal. Not a re-heated dinner for one. ¿Same procedure as every year?
No, not pasta, but let's not forget amongst this celebration of pasta physical and figurative that pasta in its myriad forms is not the only answer to global society's many problems and malaises Italian cuisine has to offer, rather, and as the Antilopen convincingly argue, there is also:
"Die heilige Scheibe, die alle vereint. Die Weisheit der Menschheit, gebacken in Teig"
"The sacred disc, that unites us all. The wisdom of humanity, baked in dough"
But that is a subject for a future playlist.
The Radio smow al dente playlist and all Radio smow playlists can be found on the smowonline Spotify page
al dente: Pasta & Design is scheduled to run at the HfG-Archiv, Am Hochsträß 8, 89081 Ulm until Sunday January 19th. Full details, including information on the accompanying fringe programme, can be found at https://hfg-archiv.museumulm.de
And our views on al dente: Pasta & Design can be found elsewhere in these dispatches. Buon appetito!!
