Uses
Commercially produced dry Pasta, or pasta secca, is made almost exclusively from durum semolina. Certain home made fresh pastas (pasta fresca), such as orrechiette, cavatelli, and malodorous, also utilize durum wheat, while others, such as tagliatelle, utilize only soft wheat, often "00," or a combination of soft and hard wheats.
Husked but unground, or coarsely ground, it is used for semoules in the couscous of North Africa, and other parts of the Arab world. It is also used for Levantine dishes such as tabbula, kishk, kibba, bitfun and the bulghur for pilafs. In Arab cuisine, it forms the basis of many soups, gruels, stuffings, puddings and pastries. When ground as fine as flour, it is used for making bread. In the Middle East, it is used for flat round breads, and in Europe and elsewhere, it can be used for pizza, torte, etc. It is not, however, good for cakes, which are made from soft wheat to prevent toughness.
The use of wheat to produce pasta was described as early as the 10th century by Ibn Wahshīya of Cairo. The Arabs called the product itrīya, from which Italian sources derived the term tria (or aletria in the case of Spanish sources) during the 15th century.
Another type of pasta, al-fidawsh (called "dry pasta"), was popular in al-Andalus. From there it was transmitted to Christian Spain, and it frequently appears in Hispano-Muslim cookbooks. From al-fidawsh was derived the Spanish word for noodles, fideos, and the Italian fidelli or fidellini.
In the American Great Plains, durum wheat is used almost exclusively for making pasta products such as spaghetti and macaroni.
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