Green and purple figs from California, melted Oka cheese and a slice of good bread drizzled with olive oil and crisped up in a panini press.

Stracnar is a pasta native to Puglia. It is formed by rolling a sheet of dough on a carved wooden board called a cavarola. The pasta sheet takes on the herringbone pattern of the wood, which is then cut into rectangles of about 1 inch by 2 ½ inches. I would like to thank Terry Mirri for crafting such beautiful works of form and function.

The following recipe is based on Giuliano Bugialli’s recipe for stracnar in “Bugialli On Pasta.” It should be enough for 4 people.

Stracnar

150 g all purpose flour
100 g semolina
3 large eggs

Roll out the pasta so that it is thick enough to accept the impression from the cavarola. On my machine that would be about the second or third last notch.

The ragu is a mixture of homemade tomato sauce from Ontario field tomatoes, some olive oil, garlic, softened onion, fresh basil and sea salt. To that was added a generous handful of cooked wild mushrooms. Simmer slowly and adjust the seasoning. Grated on top is some grana padano. A robust red wine compliments this pasta nicely — perhaps a glass of Primitivo.

As Bugialli makes a point of mentioning, “This is another of those great old pastas that must be made manually and is disappearing, but let us work to revive it.”