Pasta the Way It's Meant To Be

Broders' Southside Pasta Bar
5000 Penn Ave. S., Mpls.; 925-9202

Broders' Cucina Italiana
2308 W. 50th St., Mpls.; 925-3113

Whenever I feel blue I cast around for things to be grateful for, and I'm always cheered by the idea that I'm on the good side of history as far as food is concerned. My ancestors probably counted themselves lucky to be sitting around caves stuffing handfuls of raw grain into their gullets, while I get to flit around in a world with spaghetti, fettuccini, pappardelle, maltagliati, and tagliatelle. If I think about if for another few moments I can grow even more profoundly thankful with the realization that even with my lucky birth-timing I'd probably be limited to spaghetti and macaroni--were it not for people like Marcella Hazan, who took it as her mission to globally disseminate the pasta arts, and people like Molly and Tom Broder, who embraced the cause and ran with it.

Hazan is the Julia Child of Italian cooking, author of groundbreaking works like The Classic Italian Cookbook, in which she explains the basics of Italian regions and Italian cooking--like how factory-made pasta is best with oil-based sauces and fresh pasta is best with butter- or cheese-based sauces, and how to make fresh pasta with nothing but flour, eggs, a rolling pin, and a knife.

Husband and wife Tom and Molly Broder traveled to Bologna in 1980 to learn the essentials of pasta making from Hazan. "She had a whole kitchen set up in a hotel there," remembers Molly Broder. "She started out the class by opening a huge parmigiano reggiano, and we could just whack away at it whenever we liked. In the middle of the night we'd go down there and snack on a piece. She accomplished her mission at making us slaves to parmigiano reggiano, but it was also a revelation in so many ways. She changed the way I cook, because she taught me how simple Italian cooking is, just the freshest of ingredients done in the simplest of ways."

When they returned home to Minneapolis, the Broders opened their Cucina Italiana, specializing in the fresh pasta they'd learned to make in Marcella Hazan's kitchen and selling imported olive oils, olives, cheeses, vinegars, and other high-quality ingredients that were nearly impossible to find in markets at the time. Business at first wasn't all it could be, drawing chefs, gourmets, and, mostly, customers in search of the Broders' very good pizza. Too many people still didn't realize the difference between a box of Flavorite spaghetti covered with a jar of Ragu and a plate of fresh pasta done right. So when the Amoco across the street closed its doors in 1994, Tom and Molly saw the opportunity to serve their pasta the way it was meant to be.

"We designed the restaurant in such a way that we could make the pasta fresh right in front of people's eyes and get it to them steaming hot right out of the pot," says Molly Broder. "Fresh pasta starts to lose its qualities very quickly; every minute makes a difference." Four years later those bowls of pasta--prepared by chef Michael Rostance--have built up such an avid following that customers stack up two hours deep many nights.

On a series of recent visits, many of the dishes were outstanding. The Quadrucci with fresh greens, chicken, prosciutto, almonds, asparagus, balsamic vinegar, and mascarpone ($11.50) featured tender handkerchiefs of flat, square pasta floating in a toss of those delicate ingredients that was as rich and extravagant as it was unfussy. The fettucine con branzino siciliano ($11.25), an excellent dish in which the pasta combines with fresh sea bass, pesto, tomatoes, roasted eggplant, capers, and salted ricotta, seemed to embody spring, and it's a testament to the speed in the kitchen that the dish's bed of greens arrived unwilted, providing a nice counterpoint to the soft textures and earthy flavors of the rest of the dish.

The Broders' lasagna al forno di verdure ($8.25) is far and away the best vegetarian lasagna in town--the noodles are buoyant, the blend of spinach in a mellow bechamel sauce bright and fresh, and the crisp pieces of asparagus contribute crunch and grassy contrast to the rich mellowness of the fontina cheese. The simplest, least expensive dishes shine just as brightly as the more complicated ones: the fettuccini alfredo ($7.50) is a fresh lemon-juice-infused preparation of the classic creamy sauce, palate-lightening and delicious. The trenette con pesto alla genovese, very thin noodles served with pesto, cubes of potatoes, and crisp green beans, was elementally satisfying the way a full-blossom sunflower is--exactly the way it's meant to be. My only pasta complaint was with the spaghetti con vongole ($10.95): The tomato-based sauce with fresh clams in the shell was a bit gummy and too dominated by the red pepper, though the grouping of tiny clams on the surface of the pasta looked so happy, their little wings spread like butterflies.