Setaro Pasta

The pasta-making tradition in Torre Annunziata has ancient origins: everything began in the mid-sixteenth century, when D'Alagno family sold the Torre Annunziata feud to the Count of Sarno, Muzio Tuttavilla.
The Count, after noting that the city of Naples was lacking of mills (there were only those of Castellammare di Stabia, Gragnano, Scafati and a few others along the Amalfi Coast), decided to create some of them in Torre Annunziata.
Further, because this town is nearer to Naples, it would have been easy to transport and offer the flour to the Neapolitans at an advantageous price.
The initiative had great success and was facilitated by a number of water works, such as the Count of Sarno channel, which were realized just to feed the mills.
Around 1850, with the availability of durum wheat semolina, the first pasta factories were born, obviously equipped with very simple machinery.
They soon realized that the mild climate of this area, the lack of cold air, the sea in front and Vesuvius behind which functioned as a thermal regulator, made the outdoor drying process particularly easy (which took place on traditional bamboo canes placed along the streets and in the courts).