From csmonitor.com: Home was a noodle factory.
Posted on May 8, 2005 11:09 PM. Filed under: food.The woman arrived by streetcar early in the morning, weighed down with equipment as she walked the block to our house. We were expecting her, so I was watching from the window.
She looked ancient to my 7-year-old eyes, though she was really only middle-aged. When my mother answered the doorbell, a short, very wide, friendly, and powerfully built woman walked in wearing a short-sleeved summer dress. Her arms were like a wrestler's. She had been here before, so she greeted us briefly and trudged straight down to our basement, tools gently clinking in the rhythm of her steps.
This was the day of our annual late-summer pasta making. It was the 1940s, and packaged pasta was nearly unknown in Hungary. Though pasta brings Italy to mind for most people, Hungarian cooks also use pasta generously - in economical side dishes, soups, bases for vegetarian dishes and, quite often, in desserts.
Even when one could find pasta on grocery shelves, a good cook always chose the homemade version. But very few made their own. The common practice was to hire a pastamaker and have a year's supply prepared at home.
My mother had to schedule the pasta lady months in advance for a full day, provide a list of the varieties she wanted, and supply the flour and eggs. [continue]