Easy Etruscan pasta: Testaroli

This quite unusual - and easy-to-make - pasta is said to be of Etruscan origin. I am not aware of any archaeological or historical evidence to either confirm or disprove this claim, so let’s leave it there. I think we can safely assume that this is a very old way of preparing a pasta dish. It is special because the dough is first baked into a kind of crêpe (but without eggs), then sliced into pieces, and finally cooked. What sounds like double work actually simplifies the pasta shaping process quite a bit. The testaroli then are commonly served with pesto: the most common basil pesto, with or without cheese, or a rucola pesto, or whatever you feel like. Use your fantasy and availability. I prepared a basil pesto with walnuts because we have lots of walnuts at the moment. The Etruscans were a people that lived in the approximate area of the Italian provinces of Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio in the 1st millennium BC. Their rich and fascinating culture was slowly assimilated into Roman society. The Etruscan