Pasta
Gregg Wallace is in Italy, hitching a lift on a train carrying over a thousand tonnes of wheat to the largest dried pasta factory in the world. It produces 60% of all pasta made in Italy and supplies 3,000 tonnes to the UK each year. Gregg traces the journey the wheat takes through a seven-storey mill and into the production zone where it is mixed with water, pushed through moulds and turned into spaghetti. Along the way, he discovers that the perfect string of spaghetti is 25 centimetres long and examines the technology that allows them to produce 150,000 kilometres of it each day - enough to stretch round the earth almost four times.
Meanwhile, Cherry Healey discovers why the best pasta is made with durum wheat. This is a hard wheat that, when it is milled, turns into the granular yellow flour known as semolina, which translates as semi-milled. This is the essential basis of pasta as it retains its shape and texture when cooked. She also helps to harvest 15 tonnes of tomatoes, turning them into 3,000 litres of pasta sauce. Along the way, Cherry is surprised to hear that the British habit of pairing spaghetti with bolognese outrages many Italians. She learns why different shapes of pasta are ideally paired with different sauces and promises in future she will serve her spaghetti with a more suitable topping, like carbonara.
Historian Ruth Goodman discovers that pasta arrived in Britain much earlier than we imagined. She heads to the British Library to look at a manuscript from 1390. It is a cookbook written for King Richard II which contains a recipe for something called lozyns. Ruth cooks up a batch and is convinced that this an early version of lasagne. She also navigates the streets of Soho armed with a 1958 restaurant guide to find out how we first fell in love with Italian food.
Trailer
Recently Updated Shows
The $100,000 Pyramid
The $100,000 Pyramid features 10 episodes with 100 grand up for grabs each week when some of today's hottest stars team-up with players from across the country to take on the timeless war of words, racing against the clock to give and guess clues in one of TV's all-time great word-association games.
Naked and Afraid
Each week on Naked and Afraid, a new pair of complete and total strangers - one man and one woman - will find themselves stranded in and, quite literally, exposed to one of the world's most extreme weather environments. This duo will be left high and dry with no food, no water... and no clothes. They must survive on their own for a full 21 days, with nothing but one personal item each and the knowledge that the only prize is their pride and sense of accomplishment.
Son of a Critch
Based on the award-winning, best-selling memoir from Mark Critch. This new original comedy is the hilarious and very real story of 11-year-old Mark coming of age in St. John's, Newfoundland in the 80s. It's a heartfelt window into the life of a child – much older inside than his 11 years – using comedy and self-deprecation to win friends and connect with the small collection of people in his limited world.
The Great North
The Great North follows the Alaskan adventures of the Tobin family, as a single dad, Beef, does his best to keep his weird bunch of kids close - especially his only daughter, Judy, whose artistic dreams lead her away from the family fishing boat and into the glamorous world of the local mall. Rounding out the family are Judy's older brother, Wolf; his fiancé, Honeybee; her middle brother, Ham; and ten-year-old-going-on-fifty little brother, Moon. While the children's mother is not in the picture, Judy seeks guidance from her new boss, Alyson, and her imaginary friend, Alanis Morissette, who appears to her in the Northern Lights.
Ten Pound Poms
Ten Pound Poms follows a group of Brits as they leave dreary post-war Britain in 1956 to embark on a life-altering adventure on the other side of the world. For only a tenner, they have been promised a better house, better job prospects and a better quality of life by the sea in sun-soaked Australia. But life down under isn't exactly the idyllic dream the new arrivals have been promised. Struggling with their new identity as immigrants, we follow their triumphs and pitfalls as they adapt to a new life in a new country far from Britain and familiarity.