2,075 likes, 23 comments - jordonezraking on February 3, 2025: "If you look up ‘orzo’ on Wikipedia (slow afternoon) you’ll notice that unlike most pasta shapes, its place of origin is not listed as Italy but ‘Mediterranean Basin’. That’s because although Italy is the spiritual home of pasta, as a concept (especially in simpler forms like this) pasta isn’t exclusively native to Italy, but a feature of cuisines around the Mediterranean. Everywhere that cooks orzo has a slightly different idea of what it looks like. In Italy, they don’t usually call it orzo, which is the Italian word for ‘barley’, instead you’ll find it labelled ‘risoni’. In Greek it’s κριθαράκι (little barley), in Spanish ‘piñones’ (pine nuts), Turkish arpa şehriye (barley noodle) in south east France pépinettes (little pips) and in Arabic لسان العصفور (sparrow tongue - always so poetic) The cooking in all of these neighbouring countries that make and eat this little pasta is distinct and different, but over thousands of years the cuisines have fed and bled into one another as borders change and people move. Nowhere is this more evident than in the food of the Mediterranean islands, especially Sicily, which has always sat strategically in the middle of it all; a many layered strata deposited with the cultural sediment of each passing power. We don’t always associate saffron or mint with Italian food but they both pop up variously from north to south. Combining the two together along with lamb and sheep’s cheese puts you firmly in island territory, and it’s a delicious place to be. This is lamb neck braised with orzo and saffron (thanks @attar_apothecary), tomatoes and mint stirred in at the end and finished with pecorino. Bon appititu!".