There is no fight... just brotherhood

"It's better fresh or dried pasta?" This is a weird question for me. Eventually you can ask "Do you prefer fresh or dried pasta?" but you will just receive a personal answer. Lots of time in this country I listened someone asking this question and trying to compare the two: lots of people just things that fresh pasta is the "original and real pasta" while the dried one it's just an industrial version of it... or even that dried pasta is fresh pasta gone old (!?!?!?)

Anyway in Italy there is never been a reason for the two to be against each other, but just different occasions to use both.

As Mr Carluccio recently said in an interview: "There are 600 shapes of pasta, but only certain types should be used for certain sauces, and fresh is not always best. Fresh egg pasta is good for ravioli or mushroom, tomato and truffle sauce, but dried pasta such as spaghetti or linguine should be used for seafood as it has a little more bite." But I would add also Bolognese and reach meaty or cheesy sauces.

The "war" raged about whether fresh pasta is better than dried pasta, it's just no sense: both of them have different characteristics and use, so maybe it's just the case to try different sauces with them and find out what do you like the most.

"Fresh egg pasta is the most common fresh pasta and can be homemade or store-bought.  It is more typical of northern Italy, where the land is fertile and eggs have generally been more plentiful and affordable.  Southern Italians tend to rely more on dried pasta, that's keeps well in the hot and dry climate."  

For fresh pasta I suggest some simple melted butter sauce enriched by some sage, but also cream sauces are popular and vegetable and light tomato sauces.  The basic dough for homemade fresh pasta consists of eggs and all-purpose flour.  No salt, olive oil, or water is added.  The only other ingredient that may be used is spinach or Swiss chard for green pasta dough.

The finest dried pasta instead is made from golden semolina flour ground from durum wheat and mixed with water. In Pastificio dei Campi we use just 100% high qualitity Italian wheat, sourced in selected properties.  Once shaped, the pasta must be fully dried before it can be packaged and good quality dried pasta should have a slightly rough surface and compact body that maintains its firmness in cooking. We achieve this rough surface with the traditional bronze extraction and we are sure to maintain all the properties of the pasta with a long and slow drying process. Lots of industrial pasta is just dried for few hours at a really high temperature: this burn and destroy the pasta. We take 48 hours at around 40 degrees.

Typical sauces for dried pasta are based on olive oil rather than butter.  But as some of the recipes bear out, there are several butter-based sauces that combine well with dried pasta. In southern Italy, dried pasta is most often married with a tomato sauce, which may be plain or with meat, seafood, or vegetables.
I adore both of them but I found the dried pasta lighter and more versatile and good for a day by day use! What do you prefer?