Talk:Al dente

Picture removed

The picture in this article is removed as it does not demonstrate or provide an example that will make the reader understand the meaning of the subject. It just shows a plate of pasta, which should appropriately be under the subject "Pasta". It does not in anyway educate the reader on what "Al Dente" is, or what is not. It is also referring and linked to a restaurant chain, making it like an advertisement of one of its Pasta dishes.

213.215.245.38 (talk) 19:34, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

22 Oct 2015: Just wanted to leave a comment here that the current picture of that Pastamania "carbonara" is an abomination, and surely there is a better non-copyrighted photo that can be used in its place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.54.61.76 (talk) 05:22, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I can't agree more, this picture is not only offensively ugly, and an unnecessary advertisement, but there is no way to see how the pasta is cooked. I replaced it with one of a pot of cooking spaghetti pasta. While they are not al dente (yet), nor sow what al dente is, at least they represent that al dente is related with the action of cooking pasta. Calimo (talk) 06:52, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

This whole article stinks. It's just awful. Please rewrite the whole thing.

That thing the header says. ^ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.245.212.163 (talk) 04:37, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Usage

It is unclear from the opening sentence whether this should be used as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb. Michael Hardy 01:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

It can be used as an adjective (pasta al dente) or as an adverb (to cook al dente) Aragost 17:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

cooking method?

I remember being told that a critical part of making pasta al dente was the procedure: salting the water, getting the water to a furious, rolling boil before adding the pasta, and most importantly cooking in an uncovered pot. Are these necessary steps, or is it simply much more difficult to reach the al dente stage without overcooking when you cover the pot, add the pasta too early, leave out the salt, etc.?

I am pretty sure that fat does not tend to make pasta not stick together. The stickiness comes from excess gluten, which gets washed away in the colander after the pasta is drained. Tossing the pasta with oil or fat is unnecessary, except if you like the taste of it that way. Suchire 18:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

cooking time

One of the most important indicators of cooking pasta al dente is the cooking time mentioned on the package. This is especially true of Italian pasta manufacturers such as Barilla and others, all of whom clearly state cooking time on the box for each kind of pasta. Some varieties of pasta cook to the al dente stage faster than others. The cooking time always indicates the time from when the pasta is added to salted boiling water to when it is drained (as opposed to bringing the water and pasta to a boil together which will always result in pasta scotta, i.e. overcooked pasta.

I find this sentence not correct: Cooking pasta to the "al dente" stage without over-cooking requires a certain amount of practice and skill. The only skills you need is reading (the cooking time on the package) and using a count down watch. --MrBurns (talk) 22:53, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I concur. I've never found it difficult to make good pasta. Of course, there's always the possibility that I've been doing it wrong my whole life... but it's hard to verify that, since "al dente" is such a difficult concept to explain in words. Salvar (talk) 20:45, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

ACK. Even if you missed to look to a clock, you can easily take some out of the pot to taste it and decide if they are finished. I removed this part. --85.180.76.216 (talk) 14:00, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

History of the Phrase?

I don't have any evidence of this, but "al dente" sounds like an abbreviation of an earlier, longer phrase, e.g. "firm to the tooth", which then became shortened to just "to the tooth". Can anyone confirm or disconfirm this? Fried Gold 17:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

You could probably get a good answer on the Italian Wikipedia. Banaticus (talk) 17:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Glycemic index

The claim that cooking pasta al dente reduces its glycemic index may be a myth. The source given is an American Diabetes Association web page that does not cite any scholarly research. To the contrary, at least one study has shown that there is no significant relationship between cooking time and pasta's impact on blood glucose: Wolever et al., "Glycemic response to pasta: effect of surface area, degree of cooking, and protein enrichment," Diabetes Care, 1986 Jul-Aug; 9(4):401-4. Fyedernoggersnodden (talk) 01:32, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

This would seem to overstate the results of the 1986 study, which did observe a statistically insignificant increase in glycemic index with the overcooked pasta, used very small sample sizes, and also was not an apple to apples comparison, as more than just coking time was varied between the two samples. I would support changing the wording to stating explicitly that the ADA claims this, and I would prefer a more modern source. But I don't have a problem with weighing the conclusions of an authority in 2012 over this particular study from 1986. There are many well accepted results on Wikipedia that are contradicted by far more convincing results from the 1980s. EntropyTV (talk) 16:49, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

External links modified

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