Physicists Find a Scientific Way to Cook an Italian Dish

choi

I often wonder why Italian pasta is drained of water after boiling: There are surely some nutrients in it (water). You know, I grew up in a poor family. It turns out that there indeed something in the water: starch from pasta. That is all, folk. But Italians seem to have take advantage it (starch in water), too. a scientific report -- in (2) -- was published two weeks ago (online only, yet to appear in paper), so a couple of news report appeared two weeks ago. New York Times finally catches up -- today.

(1) Alexander Nazaryan, The perfect Cacio e Pepe Does Exist. Just Ask Scientists. Solution to the goo in Rome's Classic Pasta. NYT, Jan 25, 2025, at page A1.
https://dnyuz.com/2025/01/24/the ... cording-to-science/

Quote:

(a) "The recipe may be simple, but getting it right is anything but. The silky sauce comes together when pecorino cheese and ground peppercorns are mixed into the starch heavy water drained from the cooked pasta. Doing so will ideally create an emulsion — a détente between substances that wouldn’t otherwise mix, as when oil and water form mayonnaise.

"But as many cooks have discovered, the mixture of cheese and steaming pasta water can catastrophically result in what the researchers called the 'mozzarella phase.' [meaning cheese clumping, no longer smooth sauce]

"Hot water causes whey proteins in the cheese to bend out of shape. They then bond with each other or with casein, the other protein in cheese, causing clumps.

(b) "Starch is made of long strings of molecules, or polymers [of glucose monomer] . As they absorb water and swell, the polymers bond with casein and prevent the whey proteins from clustering[with CASEIN (denatured whey molecule still clustering with another denatured whey].

"The traditional method of mixing the cheese in pasta water often comes up short because the water doesn’t hold enough starch. The scientists’ method does away with pasta water entirely; instead, store-bought cornstarch is dissolved in plain water [separately] and then heated before the addition of cheese. The researchers calculated that the ideal concentration of starch should be between 2 and 3 percent of the weight of the cheese. * * *

Note:
(a)
(i) cacio e pepe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacio_e_pepe
("is a pasta dish typical of the Lazio region of Italy. Cacio e pepe means 'cheese and pepper' in several central Italian dialects. The dish contains grated pecorino romano and black pepper with tonnarelli or spaghetti")  (footnotes omitted)
(ii) English dictionary:
* Lazio
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Lazio
is American way of pronunciation, presumably. It is a region (as well as the nation) whose capital is also Rome. Tuscany is north to Lazio, both regions being by the sea.
* détente
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/détente
This French noun feminine ultimately came from Latin verb dētinēre to hold back.
* casein (n; First Known Use 1823; from Latin caseus)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/casein
(pronunciation)
(iii) Italian-English dictionary:
* cacio (noun masculine; from Latin [noun masculine] cāseus [cheese]): "cheese"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cacio
* e (conjunction; from Latin [conjunction] et [and]): "and"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e
is pronounced the same as the vowel in English verb get.
* pepe (noun masculine; from Latin [noun neuter] piper [pepper]): "pepper"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pepe
* pecorino (noun masculine; from adjective masculine pecorino ovine, from [noun feminine; plural pecore] pecora sheep + [suffix] -ino): "pecorino cheese"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pecorino
(b) The takeaway message: A cook determines how much water in which to boil pasta. An experienced adjust the volume of water based on the brand of pasta he is FAMILIA with. These (volume and brand) are critical because the drained water is to be used to make sauce in cacio e pepe.



(2) Bartolucci G et al, Phase behavior of Cacio and Pepe sauce. volume and page number unknown because this is online publication only
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.00536
was published on Jan 4, 2025 by "Condensed Matter" journal (since 1992; publisher MDPI).

(a) Part I Introduction (footnotes omitted):

"Phase separation often controls food texture, for example in emulsions like mayonnaise, salad dressing, and other sauces. In such emulsions, the homogeneous state prepared by blending or shaking the mixture is metastable [meaning unstable] and evolves towards a thermodynamic stable state [going back into individual components] composed of oily droplets, with undesired consistency.

"Its [The dish's] origin is commonly associated with the long travels of shepherds, who had to stuff their saddlebags with hypercaloric ingredients. Pecorino cheese was ideal due to its extraordinary shelf life, black pepper was used to stimulate heat receptors [on tongue; receptors (on skin or tongue) for heat and pepper turned out to be the same and biologists got Nobel prize for this discovery], and homemade spaghetti provided the carbohydrate intake.

(b) Part IV A Minimal Model Recapitulates the Mixture Phase Behavior  (footnotes omitted): "two different kinds of proteins in the cheese, namely casein and whey (see also Fig. 4 a [Please understand Fig 4 a, which is intuitive]). * * * heat induces denaturation of whey proteins, with consequential aggregation, while simultaneously favoring whey-micelle and micelle-micelle interactions (see Fig. 4 a)). On the other hand, casein micelles are relatively heat stable, undergoing negligible dissociation on heating.

(c) Part V Scientific Recipe: "A true Italian grandmother or a skilled home chef from Rome would never need a scientific recipe for Cacio and pepe, relying instead on instinct and years of experience. For everyone else, this guide offers a practical way to master the dish. * * * [Authors changed various parameters, one at a time:] particularly the ratio of starch to cheese. The concentration of starch plays a crucial role in keeping the sauce creamy and smooth, without clumps or separation.

Note:
(a) colloid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloid
Section 1 Classification: liquid (horizontal row at the top) in liquid (vertical column on the left) is called emulsion, which is the definition, and there is nothing to quarrel about.


The merriam-Webster.com says of etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary. See also colloid(n; ultimately "from Ancient Greek κόλλα ([romanization:] kólla [as in English noun collagen], 'glue' ") + [suffix] -oid_
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colloid
(b) emulsion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulsion
("Emulsions are part of a more general class of two-phase systems of matter called colloids"/ section 3 Emulsifiers: [One needs to add surfactants to create STABLE emulsion:] "Surfactants are compounds that are typically amphiphilic")
(i) Click "surfactant" and on the new page, you see a micelle (n; First Known Use 1881; ultimately from Latin noun feminine mica crumb).
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/micelle
(ii) I personally do not know how Romans pronounced mica in ancient time, but English now also has a noun mica for a mineral (Chinese: 云母) which is derived from the same Latin noun.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mica
(pronunciation)