As we travel and read our way around Italy, one thing that always strikes us is the beauty of the country’s regional nuances. Pasta is a fantastic example – we often think of pasta in simple ‘Italian’ terms, but it varies hugely from region to region. In the south, pasta is a simple mixture of flour and water, but travel north into Le Marche and it’s a very different story – there’s no water in the pasta here, just eggs and lots of them. If you’re in the area, you’ll see maccheroncini di Campofilone everywhere – these are one of Le Marche’s prized gastronomic treasures, a traditional egg pasta that dates back to the early 1400s.
Trace back to the origins of most Italian foods and you’ll often find they have their roots in the kitchens of the poor – maccheroncini di Campofilone is no exception. Food wasn’t always abundant in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and egg pasta became a staple of the region. By drying their pasta dough in ultra-thin strands, the people of Campofilone discovered a way to preserve egg pasta so it could be eaten all year round. In this way, maccheroncini di Campofilone was born out of necessity, but it quickly became hugely popular in Le Marche and beyond.
