Nobel Prize-winning physicist Giorgio Parisi has sparked a debate in Italy by suggesting that people could cook pasta with the heat off in order to save energy and money amid the cost-of-living crisis.
In a Facebook post, Parisi suggested turning the heat off once the water has been brought to the boil and the pasta is in the pot, then leaving it in for the necessary cook time with the lid firmly on.
While many pasta-lovers expressed scepticism on social media, top chemist Dario Bressanini says the system works.
“It’s not a new thing,” said Bressanini, whose videos on this subject have been seen by over a million people on Youtube.
“We’ve know for 200 years that it is not the boiling of the water, seeing it bubble, that does the cooking, but the temperature of the water, which transfers heat to pasta, rice or egg.”
“Many people are astounded because traditionally we are used to keeping the pasta boiling and not even using the lid.”
The no-heat pasta method involves boiling water, adding salt, throwing in the pasta, and stirring, waiting for it to come back to a boil, then turning off the heat, tightly shutting the lid, and not reopening it until the end of the cooking time, which can be extended by a minute.
“This is something that periodically comes up. Now especially because there is a crisis and gas prices have skyrocketed. My guess is that when prices come back down, hopefully soon, many people will forget about it because old habits die hard.” Bressanini explained.
An estimate of what the savings might be if these tricks were adopted was made by Italian pasta makers of Unione Italiana Food. Their study talks about “passive cooking,” with the heat off and the lid on after the first 2 minutes of traditional cooking, and calculates an energy and CO2 emissions saving of up to 47 percent. According to the association, this method is adopted by only one in 10 Italians, while healthy habits of using less water, 700 milliliters per 100 grams (as one in four would do) and always putting the lid on, (nine out of 10 would do this), have taken hold.
The importance of this last aspect was also emphasized by Parisi, who wrote on Facebook, sharing a post by Alessandro Busiri Vici: “The most important thing is to keep the lid on at all times, a lot of heat is lost through evaporation. After the pasta boils I put the gas on low, the minimum, so that it boils very low without consuming gas.”
“You can also try turning it off,” he added, “of course, this way you consume even less, and I think the pasta cooks anyway. After all, pasta even cooks well in the mountains with water boiling at 90 degrees. The lid is essential.”
