Those with an interest in making pasta dishes - and that’s everyone, yes? - are fortunate to be living in this day and age. Ancient wisdom and modern technology have combined to produce an array of tools that can aid in the pursuit of pasta perfection.

Board

If you make your own pasta, and it’s a simple exercise you should try at least once, you’ll need a good pastry board. A large wooden slicing board will do in a pinch. But then you have to fuss with flour, which dries out the pasta, then sprinkle water. It can be a pain. Though more expensive, investigate in a thin marble slab. Marble slabs provide an outstanding working surface.

Even if you don’t make your own pasta, you’ll find these sturdy, easy to clean surfaces a delight to work with. You don’t have to worry about harming them, but take precautions against dulling your knives. They clean up easily and don’t collect bacteria readily.

Rolling Pin

The traditional rolling pin may look like an antique from your Grandmother’s day. But one of the signs that this invention was a work of genius is how practical this basic design remains. Wood is common and actually healthier than you might suspect. Wood tends to oppose the growth of bacteria in a way that most plastics do not. Trees have to fight disease, too, after all.

Some like to substitute a wine bottle, but that may more an excuse to empty it than a search for a practical tool. If you go that route, be sure the glass is strong enough to stand up to forceful use. Shattered shards in pasta is dangerous for your hands and wasteful of good pasta. We assume you’ve already solved the potential problem of wasting the wine…

Scraper

Next, you’ll need a scraper - a thin metal blade with a wooden or plastic handle with which you scrape up dough. Stainless steel is great, but there are titanium alloys and a wide variety of other choices today. Plastic ones are ok, but they just don’t compare to the metal type.

Pasta Wheels and Rollers

This clever device has a cutting wheel at one end that is used to cut pasta into different shapes. Get one that allows for variety. Sometimes you want plain, simple strips. Other times you want a fluted edge, or to be able to curl the pasta into fancy shapes.

A variation is a pasta roller, used to make squares, circles and strands. Sometimes you’ll find a device that is a combination or that is formed by attachments onto a pasta making machine. Isn’t variety great?!

Bowls

The variety of bowls available to work with pasta could fill a book. And you’ll need at least a few pages worth. Small, medium and large mixing bowls all serve different purposes. A huge bowl is inefficient for making sauce, unless you happen to be cooking for fifty. Too small a bowl will make tossing a pasta salad an absurdly difficult chore, but they’re great for small sauce experiments.

Ceramic is the champ. Plastic will sometimes serve, especially if it’s one of the newer space-age types. But ceramic is strong and has great heating properties. Glass has its uses, but get Pyrex or something similar. An ordinary glass bowl is too easily shattered to be useful for anything but serving.

Mortar and Pestle

Don’t forget that old-fashioned bowl and crusher familiar to your local pharmacist. In use for thousands of years, this simple device is still useful for a variety of applications. Great for crushing peppers, nuts and herbs to add to the recipe.

And these are just some of the basics. Oh, you’ll have great fun collecting all the useful tools that populate a working kitchen.

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