Pasta, Italy’s main dish, is now joining the gas war against Russia
The latest Nobel Prize in Physics Giorgio Parisi and several chefs from the main Italian restaurants have launched a campaign to show the advantages of cooking pasta with the fire off, a “revolution” in the country’s main dish in which gastronomy is also trying to adapt to rising prices and the shortage of gas due to the war in Ukraine.
The proposal adds to a series of measures that civil societies of most European powers are taking to counter Russian extortion by increasing the cost of energy for try to break homogeneous support for Ukraine.
“After boiling the water, you have to throw the pasta away, wait two minutes, and then you can safely turn off the gas,” Parisi said in an explanatory video on social media with which he joined the campaign to adapt the kitchen of the best-dish known in the country a new European energy reality.
“You just have to use a lid and calculate one minute longer than the cooking time,” added the physicist who is a member of the Academies of Sciences of France, the United States and Europe, among others.
The price of gas has been rising since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and splashed in the last few hours after the announcement by Moscow of the indefinite closure of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which supplies gas from that country to the north of Germany, from where it is distributed to other countries of the continent, which has accentuated fears of a gas shortage in the next European winter.
The Kremlin’s argument is for technical reasons, but European governments and NATO stress that it is a political measure. The cost of gas has risen by over a thousand percent.
Due to this pressure, there are youth “patrols” in several cities that turn off billboards or municipal lights to reduce costs. “The Europeans are not giving up,” says a diplomatic source in Rome.
Parisi’s proposal comes right in the middle of the arrival of increases in gas bills to homes and businesses across Italy that put gastronomic activity at risk, as warned in late September by the sector chamber.
Chef Elio Sironi, from the Milanese restaurant Ceresio 7, is another of the promoters of the cooking technique also recommended by the scientific popularizer Dario Bressanini.
“You can achieve at least 8 minutes of gas savings. Without wanting to multiply for Italian families, I think it is news to spread “, added Parisi.
On the other hand, a study promoted by the Italian Food Union states that covering the pot during boiling allows you to save up to 6% of energy and that the cooking technique with the lid on the fire after the first two minutes allows you to save 47% energy.
Energy costs will return to pre-war levels after this winter, according to energy analysts as Russia is placing record levels of gas in China and, to a lesser extent, India. All via pipeline.
This implies that a surplus of liquefied gas is generated, which will eventually reduce prices. Moscow, which was Europe’s main supplier of energy before the conflict, will lose that customer base and risk being limited to the needs of its main Asian ally, which pays for energy below the international price.
Rome. Agencies
Source: Clarin
