Photo/Illutration Cooking pasta (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Heat a pot of water until it boils and put pasta into it. Keep heating the pot for two more minutes and shut off the heat. Lastly, put a lid on the pot and wait  one minute longer than the usual cooking time.

This is a new energy-saving way to cook pasta while saving several thousands of yen in heating costs annually. It has also created fierce controversy in Italy.

The brouhaha over the new pasta-cooking method was triggered by a proposal from Giorgio Parisi, a professor at the University of Rome, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2021. Parisi recommended this method of boosting energy efficiency when boiling pasta by putting a lid on the pot to reduce water vaporization.

Inflation has risen to serious levels in Italy due to economic repercussions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Still, the proposal came as a shock because it concerns the all-important method of cooking pasta, the national dish.

Italian cooks have gone to war over it out of pride. They have denounced the proposed cooking method for making pasta too gummy and sticky to eat.

“Don’t shut off the heat or put a lid on the pot,” they warned.

Obviously, the principles of cooking pasta represent something that is never to be compromised.

But the debate has gone astray as some new ideas have been put forward. One idea says it would be more energy efficient to cook pasta in lukewarm water.

Italian people are bracing for a severe winter with a growing sense of anxiety. One of my friends in Rome has woefully told me that the heating and lighting expenses rose 150 percent from a year earlier to about 110,000 yen ($760) for two months.

A far-right party surged to become the largest voting bloc in parliament following the country’s general election last month. The election outcome was seen by political pundits as the voting public’s resounding “no” to the government’s actions to tame inflation.

For Japan as well, inflation is not somebody else’s problem. At the end of September, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said electricity charges could rise 20 to 30 percent next spring or later.

Kishida promised to create a new system to cushion the impact of soaring energy prices, but the prospect is disturbing for me after I was shocked to see the latest monthly electricity bill.

I tried the energy-saving method of cooking pasta to prepare for costlier energy. I put a lid on the pot and waited for nine minutes. I felt the softer-than-usual spaghetti justified the cooks’ pride.

The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 2

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.