Etto makes and appearance on Mt. Etna
What is this box of pasta doing on Mt. Etna?
Aside from the cool photo op I now bring my pasta on every trip to Italy to share with friends new and old. What I discovered, much of the pasta sold in Italy and even served in restaurants isn’t close to the quality that we produce at Etto. As you can learn on our factory tours as pasta became industrialized and the popularity grew the early artisanal elements and the best grain became more of a niche item. Pasta like the type we produce at Etto is very uncommon, especially produced from organic grain.
This became very apparent on a trip to Sicily a few years ago when I was introduced to a young jewelry designer couple who moved from Rome to Ortiga (a small island next to the town of Siracusa). They stopped eating pasta a few years ago due to gluten sensitivity, but said they would eat Etto pasta when given it by my box designer, Anna who also lived in Siracusa. I of course gave them a box and realized that good pasta like ours is very special even in the motherland.
Our trip to Mt. Etna wasn’t our first, but this time we did a fairly rigorous hike with a guide up the volcano to a large crater that was very deep. As we headed down the mountain our guide received an alert that the volcano was beginning to erupt. The rest of the day as we were wine tasting further below we could hear a guttural growling that sounded like thunder over the course of the next couple hours.
I will give you more details next week about our wonderful Sicily trip and how you can join my friends on your own tour of this jewel of the Mediterranean. Until then please keep an eye on the shop for me and keep eating Etto pasta, just like the Italians like to do.
