Since my children started university, I’ve discovered something I didn’t know: that tuna pasta and pesto pasta are the two most cooked dishes by students.

I mean ‘cooked’… 😃

Yes, according to what my children told me, the ‘raw’ reality of the university students’ tuna pasta consists of pouring the can of tuna directly onto the pasta or, in more elaborate cases, in: ‘put the tuna in the pan with (almost) all its oil, add a few tablespoons of pasta water, pour the pasta into the pan, done.’ (quoted because it’s a citation).

Ahhh how things have changed since I was a university student! My roommates and I had cutting boards and rolling pins and made our own flatbreads (well, pre-cooked ones didn’t exist yet), and I remember certain chickpea soups and how much I loved cooking risottos, and now – right now while I’m writing – my friend Milena is telling me on the phone that she remembers the day we cooked eggplant sauce together (my beloved eggplants, ever since!). But neither she nor I have any memory of ever eating a student’s tuna pasta like the one my children report.

And so… since our Light and Tasty column today covers a beautiful and perfectly fitting topic – that is, first courses prepared during the pasta cooking – yesterday I deliberately and specially cooked a student’s tuna pasta (in the presence of my son 😃).

I dared a more elaborate version – but just slightly so as not to scare my son 🤭 – with only three more easy ingredients.

Did I manage to convince him that keeping a lemon, a garlic clove, and a jar of aromatic herbs at home is not a complicated thing? And that adding just three small ingredients can improve the result (in the same time and with the same effort as the ‘nothing added’ version he told me about)? I hope so!!

So then at the next step, I could try to advocate for tuna sauce, or for a gratin pesto pasta, or a minimal couscous salad. And who knows, maybe in the end even my son will become passionate about cooking! (I doubt it… but never say never! 😄).