Marlena Spieler shows how pasta can accommodate any level of cooking skill, any budget, any flavour or theme. It can be sweet or savoury, hot or cold, soup or salad, as long as you have the right collection of mouth-watering recipes to put those possibilities into practice. The recipes range from the exotic - spinach filled cannelloni with ligurian walnut sauce - to the simple - lemony spaghetti with black olives and basil - all with rich Mediterranean flavours. This is complemented by a little of the history behind the world's most popular food.