Artisanal pastas--dried noodles made  in small batches by traditional methods and sold for
higher prices--seem to be everywhere these days. Shop at any high-end grocery store and 
you'll find at least three or four brands.

Think of them as the new olive oils: rustic, simple ingredients that have been raised to new
heights by careful manufacture and by cooks always hungry for the next level of refinement.

Shopping online and in local markets, we rounded up eight examples of pricey spaghetti of
varying degrees of "artisanality." Then we threw in three commonly available ringers to test
how much difference there was between the high-priced stuff and the rest.

We cooked 2 ounces of each spaghetti in a quart of rapidly boiling water to which we'd added
a tablespoon of salt. When the pastas were done, we drained them and dressed them with a
tablespoon of olive oil.

At first, choosing among these naked noodles seemed like picking different shades of beige.
By themselves, they were nearly identical, differing mainly in slight degrees of wheat flavor
and resilience. But it gradually dawned on us that while the pastas themselves were pretty tough
to tell apart, some of them seemed to have a much stronger olive oil flavor than the others.

We tasted five brands dressed only in a tablespoon of cheap bottled tomato sauce. With three 
of them, the result was exactly what you'd expect--nice pasta flavor accompanied by thin,
scorched sauce. But two of the samples were different. With these, this same sauce tasted
full and rich. What had seemed scorched with the other pastas emerged as a deep
roasted flavor. 

When the brands were revealed, both of our favorites were made by Latini--and made from
an heirloom wheat variety. That Latini brand is the dried pasta of choice for most of the great
Italian restaurants in America.

But why do these noodles work so well? One reason is obvious once you look closely
enough: The surface of the raw artisanal noodles are rough, rather than smooth. This is true
in varying degrees; the Latini noodles were by far the roughest, almost to the point of being grainy.

After the starches have swelled during cooking, the difference isn't so obvious. But it's still
enough to allow the spaghetti to hold more sauce, amplifying its flavor.

Dried pastas have had their ups and downs. For a period in the 1980s, they were scoffed at
by foodies as inferior to fresh. That is over. Since the '90s, exports of Italian dried pasta,
already high to begin with, have continually increased.

It's important to recognize that dried pastas are not fresh pastas that have been dehydrated. Except for dried egg noodles, which are a very small part of the market, dried pastas are made from different ingredients, in a different way. Fresh pastas are made from eggs and soft wheat flour ground from the seeds of the wheat variety Triticum vulgare and are rolled out.
Dried pastas are made from water and hard semolina flour ground from Triticum durum and are extruded--or pressed through dies.

In fact, by Italian statute, dried pastas can contain nothing but semolina and water. With
many Italian firms opening factories in the United States to manufacture the noodles, one way
to tell if it's the real thing is to read the ingredient labels. If they contain additions such as
niacin, iron or folic acid, they were probably made in America, not Italy, even if the label
reads "Italy's No. 1 Pasta."

Of course, there's nothing inherently superior about Italian-made pastas. In fact, many of
them have their roots in America. Though Italy is the world's leading producer of durum wheat,
it cannot grow enough to keep up with the world's hunger for Italian noodles. This year Italy
will import about 650,000 tons of durum wheat from the U.S.--more than half of what is grown in
the country.

The secret to great pasta isn't just the material it's made from, it's also the way it is made. That
is a process that has been refined over hundreds of years and is still being refined today.

First, the flour and the water are kneaded together. If you have ever tried to do this at home, especially using gluten-rich semolina flour, you know how difficult it can be.

This, perhaps predictably, went nowhere. More successful was a water-powered
kneading machine introduced in Naples at about the same time that used a series of
paddles mounted on rods.

Once the dough is formed, it must be pressed through dies and cut into shapes. Originally, the
dies were cut out of wood, then bronze. Teflon dies, which were introduced in the '70s,
were considered a major advance because they were much easier to clean and, because of
the reduced friction, kept the dough cooler.

After the noodles have been cut into shapes, they must be dried. This is not nearly as simple 
as it seems. Moisture evaporates only from the surface, and once the surface of a noodle
has dried out it hardens, preventing the moisture from the interior from evaporating. Left to its
own devices in a stable climate, pasta would form a dry crust around the outside and leave
the interior wet, prone to acidification and hospitable to unfriendly bugs.

It takes a combination of drying & moistening for pasta to dry thoroughly. With industrialization, pasta makers began to use two closed rooms, one hot and dry and one cooler and more humid. Today's factories have streamlined that process with climate controlled drying chambers that operate much faster.

Technologies used in cutting and drying pasta are at the heart of the differences between
artisanal and mass-market spaghetti today.

The rough surface of the artisanal pastas, which help to make them so friendly to sauces, are created by the old-fashioned bronze dies. The new Teflon ones may speed production, but they also make a noodle that is too slippery to grip sauce in the same intimate way.

Less well-known is the difference in drying technology. While modern methods can dry pastas 
in less than four hours using temperatures around 185 degrees, most artisanal makers favor an old-fashioned process that takes nearly two days to dry the pasta at between 105 and 115 degrees.

The debate between the two factions is quite heated itself. The new ways, the Latinis say, result in "nonexistent flavors and aromas and a standardized 'plasticized' pasta.", however, the industrialists slap back, saying, "the use of low temperatures in drying pasta ... not only has no sense at all, but is an absurdity from the productive point of view."

Carlo and Carla Latini, a husband-and-wife team who have been making pasta only since 1990, live in the small town of Osimo in the region of the Marches--more or less the inside of the knee of the Italian boot.

Spaghetti With Raw Tomatoes

Active Work and Total Preparation Time: 20 minutes

This recipe hinges on a trick of technique--the rough stirring of the pasta and tomatoes. The key to it is using very ripe tomatoes.

Salt
1 pound plum tomatoes
15 basil leaves
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 pound spaghetti
Pepper

In plenty of rapidly boiling salted water, briefly cook the tomatoes just until the skins loosen, 10 to 15 seconds. Drain the tomatoes and rinse under cold water. Peel them, cut them in half crosswise and squeeze out the seeds and water. Chop them coarsely and place them in a wide serving
bowl with the basil, and cover with the oil.

Cook the spaghetti in the same water until al dente, about 9 minutes, drain it and add to the tomatoes. Stir them together roughly until the mixture is cool. Season to taste with salt and pepper and stir in a tablespoon of the cooking water.

Spaghetti With Mussels and Tomatoes

Active Work and Total Preparation Time: 15 minutes

2 quarts mussels in their shells, about 3 pounds
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 pound peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes or canned chopped plum tomatoes
Salt, pepper
3/4 pound spaghetti
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

Place the mussels in a large pan. Cover it and cook them over high heat until they open, 2 to 3 minutes, shaking the pan. Remove the meat from the shells and discard the shells. Strain the
liquid that remains at the bottom of the pan through a cheesecloth and reduce it over high heat if necessary. You will need about 1 cup liquid.

Put the oil and garlic in a skillet and heat over medium heat. Add the tomatoes (if you are using canned tomatoes, discard the liquid first), and boil, uncovered, over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of the mussel juice and adjust the seasoning.

Add the remaining mussel juice to rapidly boiling salted water and cook the spaghetti until tender, about 9 minutes.

Add the mussels to the tomato sauce, reduce the heat to low and heat them gently for 5 minutes. Stir in the parsley.

Drain the pasta and turn it into a hot serving dish. Pour the sauce over it and mix well.