If pasta's ingredients are eggs water and wheat while couscous is made from bulgur wheat how can couscous be pasta?

Answer 1

Pasta does not have to contain eggs. It is an unleavened (no-rise) dough made with wheat, water, and sometimes eggs. Couscous is made by taking coarse ground grain (barley, semolina, not always bulgur) and processing it by adding various flours and water to form pearls and rolling it or pressing through a sieve to get the desired shape. The word "seksu" which couscous is derived from means "rounded" or "rolled". Couscous doesn't necessarily refer to it's ingredients so much as the shape, however, pretty much all couscous is made from a grain of some sort and water which would classify any form (durum, tapioca, pearl) as pasta. Traditionally (and possibly originally) couscous was made with semolina and water then coated with whole wheat cereal to keep them separate before drying which surely classifies it as a pasta. Also, it should be noted that bulgur is not a type of wheat, but the result of a process, as well. Bulgur is usually your typical durum wheat that has been parboiled, cracked and dried.