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EUROPEAN FOOD

Pasta (Italian for "dough") is a generic term for Italian variants of noodles, food made from a dough of flour, water and/or eggs, that is boiled. The word can also denote dishes in which pasta products are the primary ingredient, served with sauce or seasonings.

There are approximately 350 different shapes of pasta. Examples include spaghetti (solid, thin cylinders), macaroni (tubes or hollow cylinders), fusilli (swirls), and lasagna (sheets). Two other noodles, gnocchi and spätzle, are sometimes counted as pasta. The former are traditional in Italy. Pasta is categorized in two basic styles: dried and fresh; depending upon whether or not pasta includes eggs as an ingredient, the shelf life of pasta can be several years. Pasta is boiled before consumption.

Pasta ingredients span a wide range. Most pastas are made from a combination of simple flour and water mixtures.

Particular varieties of pasta may also use other grains and milling methods to make the flour. Some pasta varieties, such as Pizzoccheri, are made from buckwheat flour. Various types of fresh pasta include eggs (pasta all'uovo). Gnocchi are often listed among pasta dishes, although they are quite different in ingredients (mainly milled potatoes) and therefore can't be called pasta.

Common pasta sauces in Northern Italy include pesto and ragù alla bolognese; in Central Italy, simple tomato sauce, amatriciana and carbonara, and in Southern Italy, spicy tomato, garlic, and olive oil based sauces, often paired with fresh vegetables or seafood. Varieties include puttanesca, pasta alla norma (tomatoes, eggplant and fresh or baked cheese), pasta con le sarde (fresh sardines, pine nuts, fennel and olive oil), spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino (literally with garlic, (olive) oil and hot chili peppers).

 

A crêpe is a type of very thin, cooked pancake usually made from wheat flour. The word, like the pancake itself, is of French origin, deriving from the Latin crispa, meaning "curled." While crêpes originate from Brittany, a region in the northwest of France, their consumption is nowadays widespread in France and is considered the national dish. In Brittany, crêpes are traditionally served with cider. Crêpes often have a fruit filling of syrup, mixed berries, fresh fruit or lemon cream.
Crêpes are made by pouring a thin liquid batter onto a hotfrying pan or flat circular hot plate, often with a trace of butter or oil on the pan's surface. The batter is spread evenly over the cooking surface of the pan or plate either by tilting the pan or by distributing the batter with an offset spatula.
In France, crêpes were traditionally served on Candlemas(La Chandeleur), February 2. This day was originally Virgin Mary's Blessing Day but became known as avec Crêpe Day, referring to the tradition of offering avec crêpes. It is believed that if you could catch the crêpe with a frying pan after tossing it in the air with your left hand and holding a piece of gold on your right, you would become rich that year.

 

Pastry is the name given to various kinds of baked goods made from ingredients such as flour, butter, shortening, baking powder or eggs. It may also refer to the dough from which such baked goods are made. Pastry dough is rolled out thinly and used as a base for baked goods. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts and quiches.
Pastry is distinguished from breadby having a higher fat content, which contributes to a flaky or crumbly texture. A good pastry is light and airy and fatty, but firm enough to support the weight of the filling. When making a shortcrust pastry, care must be taken to blend the fat and flour thoroughly before adding any liquid. This ensures that the flour granules are adequately coated with fat and less likely to develop gluten. On the other hand, overmixing results in long gluten strands that toughen the pastry. In other types of pastry, such as Danish pastryand croissants, the characteristic flaky texture is achieved by repeatedly rolling out a dough similar to that for yeast bread, spreading it with butter, and folding it to produce many thin layers of folds.
Those who make pastries professionally are known as either bakers or pastry chefs, depending on whether they produce pastries for a bakery or a restaurant.

Fondue is a Swiss communal dish shared at the table in an earthenware pot caquelon over a small burner. The term is derived from the French verb fondre (to melt), in the past participle fondu (melted).
Diners use forks to dip bits of food into the warm semi-liquid sauce. Heat is supplied by a wicked or gel alcohol burner, or a tealight.
Dessert fondue recipes began appearing in the 1960s. Slices of fruit or pastry are dipped in a caquelon of melted chocolate. Other dessert fondues can include coconut, honey, caramel and marshmallow.
As with other communal dishes fondue has an etiquette which can be both helpful and fun. Most often, allowing one's tongue or lips to touch the dipping fork will be thought of as rude. A double-dipping rule also has sway: After a dipped morsel has been tasted it should never be returned to the pot.

A chocolate fountain is a device for serving chocolate fondue. Typical examples resemble a stepped cone, standing 2-4 feet tall with a crown at the top and stacked tiers over a basin at the bottom. The basin is heated to keep the chocolate in a liquid state so it can be pulled into a center cylinder then vertically transported to the top of the fountain by a corkscrew auger. From there it flows over the tiers creating a chocolate "waterfall" in which food items like strawberries or marshmallows can be dipped. Chocolate fountains can be categorized as commercial-use and personal-use. Chocolate Fountains were made by Ben Brisman