Pasta, Bread & Rice

Pasta, breads, and rice are dietary staples internationally. Pasta includes commercially produced brands of dry domestic and imported Italian pasta, as well as "fresh-dried" handmade dry pasta and refrigerated pasta that is moist rather than dry. Popular pasta shapes include flat noodles that are cut from sheets of pasta, such as fettuccine, linguine, and angel hair, and stuffed pastas such as ravioli and tortellini.

Although most pasta is made from durum wheat (semolina), pasta may also be made from whole wheat, buckwheat, blue corn, or other ingredients.

With the increased popularity of ethnic—particularly Asian—cuisines, some other forms of once-ethnic noodles have migrated into restaurants and onto tables internationally. These include long Chinese egg noodles and bean thread "cellophane" noodles, Japanese noodles like soba (buckwheat noodles) and udon (thick wheat noodles), and Southeast Asian products like pho rice noodles and rice papers (the paper-thin sheets used as wrappers for Vietnamese summer rolls).

Popular types of loaf bread include white, whole wheat, whole grain, French, Italian, pumpernickel and rye, potato, sourdough, and artisan. Flatbreads include the popular Middle-Eastern style pita as well as the Latin American tortilla.

The primary ingredients in most commercially baked bread are wheat flour, salt, sugar, water, and yeast. Wheat flour is the most common of flours used in bread products. It is often refined before it is made into wheat bread, which means that its bran and germ have been removed. Whole wheat implies that the germ and bran have not been removed from the wheat kernel. The germ and bran contain essential fiber and vitamins; therefore, whole wheat flour is more nutritious.

The explosive popularity of rice-based cuisines is fueling interest in a number of rices encompassing a wide range of textures, tastes, shapes, and colors. There are reputedly some 80,000 varieties of rice in the world. Some of these varieties are: Arborio rice, a short-grain Italian white rice with a high starch content, typically used to make risotto; Basmati, an aromatic white rice from India, with long, tender grains; Bomba, a short-grained rice from Spain; Carnaroli, the highest-quality variety of Italian rice; Jasmine rice, an aromatic, long-grained white rice grown in Thailand; Red rice, a short- or medium-grained rice with a reddish color and earthy flavor; and Valencia rice, a Spanish rice used to make paella.