I want two contraptions to make macaroni", asks Nunziata as dowry before getting married and leaving the house where she grew up. Orsini's novel "Francesca e Nunziata" could be a Setaro family story that, from generation to generation, handed down the white art, symbol, and richness of an entire area.
Pasta production in Torre Annunziata began with the Count of Sarno, Muzio Tuttavilla, who realized the first mills, around which, thanks to the water works and the easy transportation of the semolina, in 1850, the first pasta factories were born. The Pasta of Torre Annunziata, soon identified with the "Pasta of Naples", became famous all over the world not only for the craftsmanship of the work, and patrimony of knowledge spread among the families of the place but above all for the particular microclimate of this town, held in the Gulf, flooded by the sun, lapped by the wind of the sea and protected by Vesuvius. The roofs of the houses in Torre Annunziata were, in fact, in ancient times, a white expanse made of pasta that, thanks to a warm and light breeze, dried naturally, absorbing the flavors of the sea and the earth.
In 1939, Nunziato Setaro, following the failure of many laboratories due to the advent of the large industrial groups, decided to buy the present pasta factory to keep intact the ancient country tradition, thus abandoning its initial work as a carrier of flour and raw materials used by the pasta factories. He avails himself of a master pasta maker who, during the working phases, measures by eye doses, humidity, and wind and of a master cutter, who cleverly changes pasta's measures, specializing himself in the production of pasta dried for a long time at low temperatures.
Built of lava, solid and indestructible, Setaro pasta factory is still a symbol of hard work, sacrifices and obstinacy of a family that, through time, has been able to maintain unchanged the splendor of the ancient pasta production art, overcoming the many difficulties mainly due to the success of industrial processing, to the artisan and limited production of small laboratories and to the widespread use of raw materials coming from far countries.
During the decades the affirmation of the company on the market and the notoriety of the brand has grown, thanks to the daily diligence of the family that doesn't leave space for feast days and distractions. Still today, Nunziato's grandchildren produce pasta while respecting the tradition of Torre Annunziata's pasta makers and the quality of their raw materials. During this time, they restarted and proposed again the ancient shapes of Neapolitan cuisine, today used by master chefs from all over the world, paccheri, candle, calamari, maltagliati, and penne. Rough and porous. In order to better absorb rich and pompous sauces. Always in the same pasta factory, in the old town centre, once the workshop of knowledge, built with thick walls made of lava stone to allow a better drying process and to create a product with a consistency and a taste unique in the world. "It is clear that if we moved our machinery in a concrete building or in an industrial shed" said Vincenzo Setaro, a member of the latest generation engaged in revamping the product "we would not get the same result."
The sun and the wind are always the undisputed protagonists of this story that still today come in from the large windows of the factory to maintain intact a tradition that fights for not disappearing. There are many, in fact, the obstacles that Setaro family had to overcome to survive without losing its identity. The strict regulations on food safety, which partly contrast with the processing steps typical of a handicraft product, machinery and production processes that exclude the "human contribution" to the realization of the product, the difficulty of being located in an old town centre that is no more a pasta factories district but nowadays mainly residential, the numerous logistical barriers for the loading of the products and the unloading of raw materials.
