Connecticut western news., 1873-01-24
MacarOni-M

You would never guess how macaron1 is made if you had not seen it. You im- agine, no doubt, that they make it like pipes, roll 1t on wires, or spin 1t out like glass. If you are in Naples, and you are quite sure you don't care very, very much for macaroni, you had better go and clear up the mystery. The moment you have passed the Ponte della Mad dalena you see on either side of you trestles in front of the shops, support ing canes which are covered with a double fringe, long and yellowish. This is macaroni hanging in the sun to dry. The flies know it very well, and do it in thousands, and the little boys know it very well, and crawl under the fringe, and just clip the ends and pick up stray morsels that may drop. I saw it hang ing just so while the ashes from Vesu- vius were still blowing about Portici
 Nothing seems to harm it, neither boys, nor dust, nor flies; they add to the flavor. Now how do you think it is made? Just peep beyond the trestles there into the shop. Why, by Jove, they are all naked" No, not quite.
 "What are those three fellows doing, jumping up and down. as if they were on see-saw ?" Kneadino the mac aroni paste. A friend of mine says he has seen them kneading it as they are doing now, but without the beam.
 And that horrible old ISpognoIetto in the bin ?" He is performing the first operation to the paste-treading it. ''And this troop of maniacs in front, rushing madly backward and forward at the end of this pole, threatening to capsize us every minute ?" Why, don't you see they are turning the screw of the press, and below there out comes the macaroni: while the boy in the hole fans it directly it is presented to the world. Then he nips it off when it has dropped certain length, and hands it to lad, who spreads it on the canes, and then-the sun, the dust, the flies, and the boys. If you wish to know any more, take away this importrlnate fore man who keeps jogging my elbow while I draw, and insisting on taking me to look on every detail, while only want to sketch the whole scene at a distance.
 He will show you the yellow corn He will tell you it comes from the country near Brindisi. He will make the wrink- eled Sl0agnolotto put water-hot water, mind-on the ,feor, and tread it under your nose. He will bring you the brass moulds at the foot of the press, through which the paste is forced, and fit bits of nlacaroni into the holes. He will not, perhaps, know that these moulds are made in England. By-the-bye. do you observe how the master, playing cards yonder in corner, keeps looking at us little suspiciously? He half thinks we are learning the secret of macaroni- making, to take it to America, and set up rival manufactory. Never fear; in America we have not got the Neapolitan water, and that's no great loss. Above, Castellamare they say the best macaroni is made, but I don't know. on what the excellence depends.
 's" Macaroni is only flour and water 3 That's all. It can't be the substance, then, that delights the Neapolitans; it must be the form. There must be some thing in the long, snaky strings which tickles the Neapolitan throat and palate. Some gourmand wished for throat as long as a cranes, that he might eke out the pleasure of eating. Yards and yards of macaroni, and yards and yards of neck, would be the very acme of ! delight to Neapolitan. You may catch him in the act, if you like, in a little street that runs away to the right from the Castle Nouovo. Here there are dozens of queer shops, with frying ap- l paratrls outside, and our Neapolitan sees his macaroni cooked, swallows whole punches of it, or rather lets it glide down his throat, and never thinks not he-how it's made, nor of the dust and the flies and the boys.