PANDEMIC
NOODLES
Ashley Varnadoe
Hometown: Georgia
Chemistry and Biology Double-Major
Ashley is a student at Emory University majoring in chemistry and biology, and she is hoping to become a veterinarian to help animals all over the world. Ashley credits her love of animals for her love of cooking. Growing up on meat centered meals in South Georgia, she made the decision in high school to become vegan. Instead of falling into the dark pit of few vegan sweets, Ashley sought out unique dishes that caught the attention of her tricky taste buds. Having a big sweet tooth, Ashley focused her newfound cooking inspiration on vegan baking. Years of perfecting her favorite brownie led Ashley to want to venture into the world of dinner cuisine, specifically the incorporation of dishes from other cultures. In her free time, Ashley takes an active part in food justice and animal welfare, while always advocating for the incorporation of vegan substitutes when applicable.
Reflection on Making
Oriecchette with Greens
I chose Orecchiette with Greens because I am vegan and orecchiette was one of the few pastas I found that was not made with eggs. Eating vegan is very important to me because I have always stood against animal cruelty. As I got older, I realized that the food industry, specifically the food industry here in America, was focused on speed and easy access. This focus on speed took away from the care of animals, resulting in an industry that only furthered acts of animal cruelty. Because of this, I’ve always found it difficult to eat pasta in restaurants because of the uncertainty of how the pasta was made. So when looking for pasta dishes for the noodle project, I came across orecchiette, a pasta made with only flour and water. In addition to the pasta itself, I chose to include greens as my pasta flourish because vegetables are a big part of my diet.
Orecchiette, meaning “little ears” in Italian, is a pasta native to Southern Italy, specifically Puglia. Orecchiette became popular in Puglia somewhere between the 1300s and 1400s. However, today, this specific pasta is popular all over Italy. Its popularity and growth are because the local ingredients in which orecchiette were originally made were widely accessible all over Italy. In addition to orecchiette dishes, this pasta is typically paired with green vegetables such as Broccoli, turnip leaves, and parsley. It can also be made with cauliflower and root vegetables such as potatoes and turnips. A vegetable Italians from Puglia like most to cook with orecchiette is broccoli rabe, also known as rapini. It’s a green leafy vegetable and its leaves and stem are included in the dish and is best when sautéed in olive oil. Interestingly, Puglia is one of the largest extra virgin olive oil producers in all of Italy, making it a staple ingredient in dishes that originated from this area.
The tradition of hand-made orecchiette is long and significant, and over the years, the skills of the women making the pasta have become increasingly specialized. When I started the process of cooking my Orecchiette with Greens, I very quickly realized that I had no idea how to form the orecchiette’s distinct shape. I fled to the internet to try to learn from videos, and I soon found out I was a lost cause. My little ears were more similar to flat toes. However, in my research, I found a story about Puglian women living in Bari, Italy’s capital of Puglia, who are absolute masters in the art of crafting the perfect little ears. The tradition is to use a wooden surface to get the perfect stretch in the orecchiette. These women used wooden surfaces out in the open air to provide both more room for the large number of pieces they are able to make and for the act of allowing people to peer into their practice and home. Cooking is a community practice in Italy, and in the making of orecchiette, its preparation is included in the community practice. The Puglian women could lob off more than ten perfect but unique little ears in the amount of time it took me to fail at one. They estimate that multiple billion little ears are made per one person’s lifetime, and I am not surprised. Not only do these ladies bring their preparation services out to the public, but they also make them for the public. After making hundreds and hundreds of orecchiette, they are left to dry on wooden screens. Once the little ears are dry, the Puglian women package them up to give to their local community. The immersion experience they allows passersby to take part in, and the dedication they give back to their community is outstanding and really gives depth to what can seem like an average pasta. These ladies are the orecchiette ladies of Bari Vecchia.
Entering this class and this assignment, I had the idea that pasta was easy. Boil some water, throw it in, wait ten minutes, and you’re good to go. However, I was so incredibly wrong. Hand-made pasta is the hardest feat I have experienced yet in the kitchen. The stickiness. The kneading. The shaping. Everything was 10x harder than I thought, including the decision on what to pair with my pasta. In my research, I found rapini was the most common vegetable for orecchiette, but being very unfamiliar with it, I ended up doing a deep dive on vegetable substitutes. I bought my veggies; I made my pasta (terribly); and I chopped and cooked all my supplies. But then I forgot a vital step. I poured my pasta water down the drain without saving any. So of course, I boiled more water and threw in some prepackaged orecchiette I had bought as a fail-safe just to get my pasta water. This project encouraged me to look deeper into something I never would have before, and I ended up being truly interested and happy after reading about the history, traditions, and stories of orecchiette. Creating ingredient and instruction lists made me carefully think about what I was doing, making me take an active part in my pasta, rather than passively throwing it in a pot. Overall, this project taught me to delve deeper and be more appreciative of the food I have access to. However, more importantly, it taught me about the importance of pasta water.
"Second-generation Culture Observer"
By: Ashley Varnadoe
As the daughter of a first-generation Honduran American, I witnessed the differences between Honduran and American culture first-hand. My grandmother and her parents were originally from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, but they later moved to Peña Blanca, Honduras in the 1990s. Before moving back to Honduras, my grandmother came to the United States in the early 1950s, settled in Tampa, Florida, built her home, and started her family away from home.
Conditions in rural Honduras were somewhat tumultuous with the government, so my great grandfather sent his children away in hopes of a safer life. According to family stories, my great grandfather was related to a president of Honduras, allowing my family riches and privileges unknown to them before. However, the move to rural Honduras seems to provide evidence against that particular story.
Immigrant families always have stories and histories about a certain past, but I’ve gathered that most of them are dramatized beyond their reality. My grandmother left rural Honduras for the flashy Florida scene, but ended up later moving to rural Georgia before her return to Honduras. In the end, she left a rural town for another rural town. My great grandfather was a business owner and a farmer, and he was often gone from home to find new areas for potential farmland. My grandmother and her siblings attended finishing school while he was away and would return home during off seasons to see him. My great grandmother insisted that my grandmother and great aunts and uncles retain their culture while away at finishing school by cooking home dishes away from home.
When my grandmother was young, she learned how to make enchiladas and carried this tradition to Florida and Georgia later in her life. As a young girl in the early 1900s, she wasn’t allowed to participate in farm life, so the kitchen was her home. My grandmother and her older sister would compete for the best enchiladas and continued this competition until they were in their 80s. Though a competition, it provided the space for a big family reunion.
As for my mother’s side of the family, I am unsure about the family ancestry. My Honduran/American father had an egg donor for me and my sister, leaving it open to endless possibilities. However, my large Honduran family made up for the lack of knowledge on my mother’s side. My grandmother would spend every afternoon teaching me Spanish and showing me how to write in cursive. Every weekend my grandmother would show me the process of making enchiladas, the most important dish in her family.
Growing up in American culture, Tex Mex was popularized and I became used to what I thought of as the “typical” enchilada. My grandmother was furious that I considered her enchilada atypical, so I was forced to make Honduran enchiladas every weekend for months. Honduran enchiladas start with a process similar to pasta, just flour and water. Enchiladas are pasta, then, just don’t tell my grandmother I said that.
Today, my family of Honduran Americans living in rural Georgia is an isolated unit. After relocating from Honduras, they stuck to themselves. Because of this, they strongly embraced Honduran culture with their outdoor ceramic shops, outdoor stoves with roofs made of palm fronds, and their chickens roaming freely throughout the house and yard. When I think of my relatives and their stories from many years ago, I imagine it somewhat like it is today. I imagine the farms and the chickens and thinking today is a mirror image of the past.
Today, for me as a white passing Honduran American, I feel a disconnect with some of my family, but I like to think my ancestors would be happy where I am today. As a first generation, low income student, I was able to attend Emory and hopefully earn my degree in a year. Today, I am successful because of the risks taken and the hard work of my ancestors.