The Best Pasta Shapes, According to Italian Chefs
You won’t find fettuccine or macaroni on this list.https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/best-pasta-shapes-according-to-italian-chefs
Glazed shortribs with lumache pasta. | Courtesy of North Italia
When it comes to pasta, I mostly love it all. Sheets of lasagna stacked high, the way peas can nestle perfectly in orecchiette, the heft of tagliatelle. I would be lying, however, if I said I didn’t have a favorite. I am a lover of cavatappi—perfect corkscrews that can stand up to a meaty sauce or bathe luxuriously in buttery cream. My colleagues have differing opinions as to what constitutes the best, however. We debated the merits of wavy tangles of mafaldine versus the irresistible curve of creste di gallo, which resembles a rooster’s comb. For long pasta, is spaghetti, bucatini, or linguine preferred? (There will be no mention of angel hair, because—to me—its thin strands are quite possibly the worst pasta shape.) To settle any debate, I’ve decided to ask pasta professionals—Italians and Italian Americans in the food industry—to share what their favorite pasta shapes are. They wax poetic about what sauces to pair with their favorites and why the shapes are so special. And if you weren’t already buying lumache, this is a sign to start. Here’s what our experts had to say.
Chris Curtiss
Brand Chef, North Italia
Favorite pasta shape: Tonnarelli
What sauce does it go best with: Tomato-based sauces
Why it’s the best: “I really love tonnarelli, which mimics the classic spaghetti alla chitarra that is well known in the Abruzzo region of Italy. Tonnarelli differs from traditional spaghetti because of its squared cross-section, whereas spaghetti is round. This pairs perfectly with a tomato-based sauce because of its robust mouthfeel, plus it’s easy to eat. At North, for our new fall menu that we’ll release later this month, we’ve chosen to elevate this pasta shape even further by creating a squid ink version. The pasta dough is created fresh daily using squid ink, then extruded and paired with a spicy bomba tomato sauce and vermouth to highlight the variety of seafood included in the dish such as calamari and tiger shrimp. For those at home, my advice for venturing out into using tonnarelli would be to try swapping it out for spaghetti in recipes you already have. You’d be surprised how drastically a dish can change by updating the style of noodle you’re using.”
Benjamin Dodaro
Executive Chef, Patina Restaurant Group
Favorite pasta shape: Mafalde
What sauce does it go best with: Hearty ragu or cacio e pepe
Why it’s the best: Mafalde is an extremely versatile pasta, which is why it’s one of the best to have in your pantry. I personally like to describe it as if a wavy lasagna and fettuccine had a baby, they would make mafalde. We make a homemade mafalde verde with sweet Italian sausage, fennel, onions, white wine, Calabrian chili and finished off with extra virgin olive oil and pecorino romano. This dish is always a guest favorite when it’s on the menu.
Michele Mazza
Chef, Il Mulino New York
Favorite pasta shape: Bucatini
What sauce does it go best with: Amatriciana sauce
Why it’s the best: Bucatini is unique as it is a long noodle with a hole in the middle, when mixed with amatriciana sauce the sauce becomes a part of the pasta. It’s like a love affair. People should try it as the bucatini can be cut or broken and shaped to different sizes for use in different dishes such as soup or with Parmigiano Reggiano. I love it because if I cook too much, the next day for breakfast I can mix it with eggs, mozzarella and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese to make a frittata.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
https://www.todayonline.com/world/did-pasta-come-china-absolutely-not-historians-say
HONG KONG — Pasta is Italy’s staple food, but it’s not only Italians who indulge in platefuls of the doughy concoction every day. People all over the world adore it. It comes in more than 300 shapes: long, as in spaghetti; flat, as in fettuccine; hollow (bucatini); short, as in penne; the butterfly-shaped farfalle and ear-shaped orecchiette; tubular (rigatoni); and stuffed, in varieties such as tortellini and ravioli. It can be bought dry or freshly made from egg-based dough. World Pasta Day, held each October, celebrates the universal love of this staple of the Mediterranean diet.
But who invented pasta? Legend has it that spaghetti is descended from noodles, based on the premise that Venetian nobleman and merchant Marco Polo imported long, worm-like strands of the latter to Italy from China in the late 13th century. To many, though, the Chinese origins of Italian pasta are a myth. It is true that Marco Polo did spend several years in China, learning the country’s traditions and culture, and he may have brought Chinese noodles and other foods back from his journeys. But Italian food historians say pasta culture was already flourishing in the Mediterranean region centuries before he travelled east, among the ancient Greeks and later among the Romans.
“Noodles are one thing, pasta another food altogether,” says Ms Anna Maria Pellegrino, a food historian and a member of the Italian Academy of Cuisine. “They reflect two separate culinary cultures and identities that have developed in parallel, the only conjunction being the need for nourishment and, above all, to share around the same table feelings and everyday life events. “The way they are cooked, the pots, the types of cereals used, the preparation, ingredients and toppings are completely different and specific to each civilisation. There’s no direct link between the Asian and the Italian or Mediterranean ways of mixing cereals with water to create noodles or pasta,” she says.
Ms Pellegrino adds: “Ever since the birth of agriculture, man has learned to hone crop techniques and shape these to his needs, thus mixing grains with water was an automatic step which happened across all civilisations at some given point in time, probably simultaneously,” Historical texts and works by classical poets help to date the first type of primeval pasta to the time of the ancient Greeks. Mr Giorgio Franchetti, a food historian and scholar of ancient Roman history, is the author of a book, Dining With the Ancient Romans, which was recently translated into English. He roundly dismisses the Marco Polo theory about the origins of pasta. “It’s pure nonsense,” he says. “The noodles that Marco Polo maybe brought back with him at the end of the 1200s from China were essentially made with rice and based on a different, oriental culinary tradition that has nothing to do with ours.”
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I'm as WASP as anybody but I loves me some good bolognese sauce with bucatini. And don't ever tell my Italian-American (full-blooded) wife that you cut it in half! Ay caramba!!!
I think I'll duck now, just in case your ex wants to throw something at me!!!
You have set the planning and dining for the day or days ahead. My dear wife has been hinting as the cooler weather has now been coming that an all day sauce simmering would be delightful. The tomatoes are fresh from the vine waiting for their reincarnation. Madam Basil and her minions, oregano, thyme and parsley quake in anticipation for the union of flavors to come and I must get busy.
🍝🍝🍝
I'm no expert in pasta but I was pretty happy with it. I felt it met the criteria the inventor established for it.
https://pasta.com/cascatelli-the-new-pasta-shape-thats-gone-viral/
skimmed the thread before I posted but missed you. they are pretty darn good aren't they? 
Full-Blooded-Italian, that is.
Favorites are mafaldine and fusilli bucati lunghi (the long ones)
Homemade pastas rock! Whatever the Atlas will kick out is great, unless you are the one who has to clean up afterward.
But homemade cavatelli are the best, and I used to make them as a kid, with the old cast-iron cavatelli machine.
This is newer.
And for everyone else, there's Rigatoni, Mostaccioli or Spaghet'
My favorite before that was bronze-cut trecce, which is sort of like a big version of gemelli or cavatappi. Traps sauces really well:
Nowadays, I'm grateful for whatever pasta I can get that's low carb.
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