“I Am Tasting the Stars” — Pastina: Spilled Milk #186

A handful of ingredients plus a few minutes' work = comfort food perfection.

Dom Perignon himself uttered these words, “Come quickly, I am tasting the stars,” after sipping what would later become more widely known as champagne: a sparkling wine made in Champagne. And our fortuitous and grateful monk has been credited with turning what was thought of as a winemaking mistake into the $6 billion industry it is today.

The Benedictine monk was the cellar master at the Abbey of Hautvillers. His job, or one of them, was to try to prevent wine from becoming bubbly. In those days there was no market for wine if it “turned” that way.

Hundreds of years ago it was too cold to leave the wine in barrels, and it was frequently bottled before full fermentation occurred. Pérignon and the monks couldn’t keep the wine from becoming effervescent. BUT he found the flavor out of this world. The abbey’s process became popular, and the rest is history.

Well, pastina elicits that kind of reaction from me, and if you follow these instructions to the letter you will see stars, guaranteed. It might be my favorite comfort food dish of them all.

Recently this dish has been all over social media. So we may in fact be at peak pastina. Even the noodles are hard to find at your local grocery store because for years makers weren’t selling any, so they stopped making them. I buy several brands on Amazon. This one is great.

So technically Stelline is the name of the noodle (little stars) and pastina is the name of the dish. BUT in many circles it is all called pastina. Let’s make it.