Wednesday, December 10, 2008

ISO standardizes pasta cooking times

It has been a bit slow on here of late; apologies for that. To kick things off again, some good news for those dismayed by setback to the transnational standardization process represented by the sad news that the EU was to repeal its laws banning the sale overly-bendy bananas (and some 25 other types of fruit and vegetables inflicted with some aesthetic deformity). To reassure us that the global standardization community remains as productive and worthwhile as ever, the International Organization for Standardization has proudly presented ISO 7304-2:2008:

A new ISO standard offers the ingredient of objectivity to the delicate debate on the cooking of pasta which is so dependent on subjective taste: what is nice and firm for one is undercooked for the other, too this or too that…

Now, ISO 7304-2:2008... describes a test method for laboratories to determine a minimum of cooking time for pasta.

This International Standard specifies a method for assessing, by sensory analysis, the quality of cooked alimentary pasta in the form of long, solid strands (e.g. spaghetti) or short, hollow strands (e.g. macaroni) produced from durum wheat semolina, expressed in terms of the starch release, liveliness and firmness characteristics (i.e. texture) of the pasta. It does not apply to pasta in the form of small strands usually consumed in soups.

Gone are the days, then, of throwing bits of linguine at the wall; sighs of relief all round, I should think...

Shame about the soup, though.

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