From dry pasta to cardboard coffins: where it pays to buy basic

Whether it's tea or trainers, bread or body lotion, why do we pay more for posh things when the cheap stuff is so much better? Sali Hughes on the joys of being cheap and chic

Any Italian knows that unless Nonna made it with her own bare hands this morning, unfilled pasta is best when dried, packaged and stored in a cupboard. Those bags of fresh" pasta in the supermarket chiller cabinet are the worst of all worlds. Claggy, eggy, pricey and wholly incapable of not scrambling a carbonara, bagged fresh pasta tricks the consumer that they're elevating the quality of what is infinitely more delicious at 60p. Besides, one has no wider than a three-second window to remove from heat and strain before chiller cabinet pasta transforms from inedibly raw to waterlogged mush. Foul.