According to the instructions which came with my pasta machine pasta was first invented by Vulcan, the God of Fire. Spurned by Ceres, Goddess of the Harvest, he stripped her fields of wheat, ground it and plunged it into the sea in the Bay of Naples. Then he cooked it over the flames of Vesuvius and served it dressed with the fragrant oil of from the olive groves of Capri.

Perhaps this would have been the easier approach. Making the dough was easy enough (8oz of flour - and I even used doppio zero or double zero flour the finest you can get - 4 tsps of olive oil, 2 large eggs, salt and a little cold water).

With the pasta machine securely clamped down I started to roll out the pasta. All seemed very easy. Next came using what the instructions referred to as “the Attachment” I decided on making tagliatelle - had to be easier as it was larger bits to deal with, right ?

I fed in my newly rolled, thin, square pasta into “the Attachment”. Turning the handle I wondered where the pasta was going. A quick look underneath revealed it was slowly forming a yellow lump rather like play dough but with the adhesive properties of Superglue.

Eventually I managed to get it out of the workings of “the Attachment” and rolled flat again. This time something did appear at the other end of the machine - and dropped on the floor.

Back to rolling out the next lump of pasta and trying again. This time things appeared and I managed to catch them, then watch them stretch to amazing lengths, with astounding elasticity, reluctant to let go of “the Attachment”. What had I invented ? This stuff was easily more impressive than the block of Krytonite found recently in Serbia. Fortunately I still had the knife.

Ok the end result wasn’t perfect but it did taste good and I will try it again. I just need a little more practice and a lot more flour.

Buon appetito!