{"id":19825,"date":"2020-10-22T13:28:46","date_gmt":"2020-10-22T17:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dia.com\/blog\/?p=19825"},"modified":"2022-06-22T10:08:22","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T14:08:22","slug":"what-pasta-has-taught-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dia.com\/blog\/know\/what-pasta-has-taught-me\/","title":{"rendered":"What Pasta Has Taught Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I think of home, I think of pasta. I think of the steam that rises into the air after it\u2019s drained from a metal colander. I think of the starchy aroma that filled up my grandparent\u2019s home in the Bronx as grandma prepared Sunday dinner. I think of my 84-year-old grandmother standing at the stove wearing a red, white, and green apron talking about how her mother and grandmother used to make the dough and the gravy* with only a few ingredients. I think of its simplicity \u2014 a dish that can fill you up, comfort you, show you love\u2014a cultural representative made from 6 ingredients and the shared knowledge passed down from generation to generation.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I\u2019m honest, pasta exists in an odd in-between for me. The simplicity is overshadowed by its mention on every \u201cbad\u201d list for every diet that has ever existed \u2014 and I have for most of my life (up until the last few years) actively been trying to be thinner. Even saying the word \u201cpasta\u201d drudges up memories\u2014pushing away gorgeous plates of ribboned linguine in the hopes that if I lost weight by giving up pasta and it\u2019s core sidekick <\/span>bread<\/span><\/i> I could one day return to enjoying the dish that kept my family fed for generations. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diet culture has made us believe that food is either good or bad. We\u2019re either eating clean or relegated to the \u201cbad list\u201d. We\u2019re trying to have a <\/span>new you body-<\/span><\/i>kind-of-year or we\u2019re stuck in the <\/span>before<\/span><\/i> section forever. We\u2019ve either let the thin person inside of us come out, or we\u2019ve let ourselves go. And pasta . . . well, pasta is for the people <\/span>good<\/span><\/i> enough to deserve every bit of its complicated carby makeup (a complex carb, if you will). So, not me. Not this body. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But pasta. It\u2019s so simple. It represents this carefree life that I deeply want to exist in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In fact, I find that most of my thinking about food (especially pasta) exists within these arbitrary body rules that I\u2019ve been tethered to for the entirety of my existence so that I can strive for simplicity \u2014 the tenants of being a<\/span> good fatty<\/span><\/i><\/a> (yes, a real term):<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n