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Pasta

Inside the Factory Series 3
Episode 2 of 6

Documentary series. Gregg Wallace is at the world's largest dried pasta factory in Italy, where they produce 150,000 kilometres of spaghetti each day.

Gregg Wallace is in Italy, hitching a lift on a train carrying over a thousand tonnes of wheat to the largest dried pasta factory in the world. It produces 60 per cent of all pasta made in Italy and supplies 3,000 tonnes to the UK each year. Gregg traces the journey the wheat takes through a seven-storey mill and into the production zone where it is mixed with water, pushed through moulds and turned into spaghetti. Along the way, he discovers that the perfect string of spaghetti is 25 centimetres long and examines the technology that allows them to produce 150,000 kilometres of it each day - enough to stretch round the earth almost four times.

Meanwhile, Cherry Healey discovers why the best pasta is made with durum wheat. This is a hard wheat that, when it is milled, turns into the granular yellow flour known as semolina, which translates as semi-milled. This is the essential basis of pasta as it retains its shape and texture when cooked. She also helps to harvest 15 tonnes of tomatoes, turning them into 3,000 litres of pasta sauce. Along the way, Cherry is surprised to hear that the British habit of pairing spaghetti with bolognese outrages many Italians. She learns why different shapes of pasta are ideally paired with different sauces and promises in future she will serve her spaghetti with a more suitable topping, like carbonara.

Historian Ruth Goodman discovers that pasta arrived in Britain much earlier than we imagined. She heads to the British Library to look at a manuscript from 1390. It is a cookbook written for King Richard II which contains a recipe for something called lozyns. Ruth cooks up a batch and is convinced that this is an early version of lasagne. She also navigates the streets of Soho armed with a 1958 restaurant guide to find out how we first fell in love with Italian food.

59 minutes

Last on

Tue 2 Apr 2019 20:00
主播大秀 Two

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Clips

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Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:01

    Felix Mendelssohn

    Italian Symphony In A Major Opus 90: First Movement

  • 00:01

    Dean Martin

    Mambo Italiano (Club des Belugas Remix)

  • 00:01

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Overture The Marriage of Figaro Symphony No 40 In G Minor K550

  • 00:03

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Overture to The Marriage of Figaro (K.492)

  • 00:05

    Nino Rota

    8陆

  • 00:07

    CHVRCHES

    Empty Threat

  • 00:07

    CHVRCHES

    Empty Threat

  • 00:10

    Little Mix

    Beep Beep

  • 00:12

    Milky Chance

    Ego

  • 00:14

    Federico Scavo

    Balada

  • 00:16

    Agnes Obel

    Stone

  • 00:18

    Agnes Obel

    Red Virgin Soil

  • 00:22

    Kygo

    Carry Me (feat. Julia Michaels)

  • 00:22

    Picture This

    Let's Be Young

  • 00:22

    Kygo

    Carry Me (feat. Julia Michaels)

  • 00:23

    Kygo

    Oasis (feat. Foxes)

  • 00:24

    Giuseppe Verdi

    Rigoletto: Act II- Caro Nome

  • 00:25

    Of Monsters and Men

    Human (Glastonbury 2016)

  • 00:29

    Eliza and the Bear

    The Southern Wild

  • 00:33

    Brian Deady

    Clap Both My Hands

  • 00:40

    Bastille

    Good Grief

  • 00:40

    Nero

    Two Minds

  • 00:44

    Eliza and the Bear

    Natives

  • 00:45

    Vince Eager & The Vagabonds

    Yea, Yea

  • 00:44

    Ken Mackintosh & His Orchestra

    Crew Cut

  • 00:47

    Tommy Steele

    Come On, Let's Go

  • 00:48

    Sophia Loren

    Tu Vuo' Fa L'americano (From The Film "It Started In Naples") (feat. Paolo Bacilieri)

  • 00:49

    Foals

    My Number

  • 00:50

    Kygo

    Happy Birthday (feat. John Legend)

  • 00:52

    Doves

    The Greatest Denier

  • 00:53

    James Arthur

    Coming 主播大秀 For Summer

  • 00:56

    Daft Punk

    Derezzed

  • 00:57

    Ed Sheeran

    Castle On The Hill

  • 00:58

    Olly Murs

    Better Without You

  • 00:59

    Olly Murs

    Better Without You

  • 00:59

    Kaiser Chiefs

    Hole in My Soul

Credits

Presenter Gregg Wallace
Presenter Cherry Healey
Presenter Ruth Goodman
Executive Producer Alice Harper
Executive Producer Sanjay Singhal
Series Producer Amanda Lyon
Director Michael Rees
Producer Emma Pound
Producer Sam Bailey
Director Sam Bailey
Production Manager Sally Finigan
Production Company Voltage TV Productions Ltd

Broadcasts

Learn more about the history of the factory and how it has evolved with an interactive from The Open University.

The fascinating stories behind the production of some of our favourite products.