Il Primo

Il primo is the first course of the Italian meal, the dish that follows the antipasto and precedes the secondo, and in the greater part of the peninsula it is a dish of pasta, rice or soup. Its place in the order of the table rests on the long standing of pasta in Italian cooking, which Oretta Zanini de Vita treats region by region in her Encyclopedia of Pasta, where the shapes and their local uses are set down according to the places that made them. The course has no single birthplace; it is the common result of many regional habits, in which the starch of the district, whether durum wheat, soft wheat, rice or maize, determined what stood at the head of the meal.

The primo is defined by its position and by its substance. It is the course that carries the starch of the meal, and for that reason it is served in a measure smaller than a main dish would be, since more is to follow. Zanini de Vita's Encyclopedia of Pasta shows how closely the shape of the pasta is tied to the place where it is eaten, and how each shape is matched with a sauce, a broth or a filling that the district itself supplies. The primo is therefore less a single category than a family of dishes bound together by their place in the sequence. In the south and in the central regions the primo is most often dried pasta of durum wheat, dressed with a sauce of vegetables, of meat or of fish according to the locality. In the north, and particularly in the regions of the Po plain, fresh egg pasta, filled pasta, rice and polenta take the place that dried pasta holds further south. The Encyclopedia records this division of the country and does not smooth it away; the primo of Emilia is not the primo of Puglia, and the book keeps the two distinct. Broths and soups also belong to the course. Pasta in brodo, small shapes cooked in a clear stock, stands in the primo position as fully as any dish with a sauce, and the Encyclopedia gives such preparations their due beside the better-known dishes. The same holds for the regional soups of pulses and vegetables, in which pasta is cooked in the liquid itself and the dish is served as one. The order of the table follows from this. The primo comes after the antipasto, which opens the appetite, and before the secondo with its contorno, which carries the meat or fish and the vegetable that accompanies it. The cook who plans a meal places the primo with that sequence in mind: a rich, filled pasta calls for a plain secondo, and a light dish of pasta in broth may precede something more substantial. Pasta is cooked to the point of being al dente and brought to the table at once, since the dish does not wait. In the everyday meal the sequence is often shortened, and the primo may stand alone or with a single accompaniment. On feast days and at Sunday tables it takes its full place, and in many regions the dish served as the primo on such occasions is a filled or baked pasta that belongs to that day alone. The Encyclopedia of Pasta is the proper guide to these local usages, and the cook who wishes to serve a primo correctly will consult it for the shape, the sauce and the occasion proper to each district.

The primo sets the character of the meal, since its seasoning and richness determine what may follow. A sauce of tomato, a ragù, a broth or a filling of cheese and herbs each gives the course its own weight, and the cook balances the secondo against it. Pasta served al dente, with the sauce just clinging to it, is the standard at which the course is judged.