From ‘bucatini’ to ‘ziti’: Noodlings and musings on Italian pasta
Deep in the halls of the Chamber of Commerce of the Italian city of Bologna sits a small wooden box holding a long, thin bar of pure gold. Viewable by appointment only, the artifact, called the “tagliatella d’oro,” measures exactly 8 millimeters (.31 inches) in width. It was submitted by the Academy of Italian Cuisine and registered with the city notary on April 16, 1972, becoming the golden standard against which all tagliatelle pasta in the world must measure. While the length and depth of an authentic tagliatella are not specified, the precise width (measured when cooked) is essential. “Any other size,” the act reads, “would make it lose its inimitable character.”
Can a pasta have personality? Some could be called stately, like the tagliatelle, of course, or the more familiar fettuccine and linguine. Others are curly, swirly and screwy—think radiatori, campanelle, strozzapreti or even good old elbow macaroni. I’m reminded of the long-adored New Yorker cartoon depicting a tube of rigatoni talking on the phone, with, we’re led to believe, another shape of pasta on the other end of the line. Rigatoni exclaims, “Fusilli, you crazy bastard! How are you?” “Inimitable character” indeed.
If one were to recreate the sketch specific to the Emilia-Romagna region (of which Bologna is the capital), the pastas on either end of the line might be the esteemed “tagliatelle,” from the italian “tagliare,” meaning “to cut,” and its “crazy” counterpart, the irregularly-shaped bits and bobs of dough called “maltagliati”—translation: “cut poorly.”
Photo by Jorge Zapata on Unsplash
It’s these shaping methods of the pasta-maker (called a “pastaio”) that often sway a noodle’s name. The aforementioned rigatoni, with its telltale fluted exterior, gets its name from the Italian “rigare,” meaning “to score.” The versatile cavatelli, an export of Italy’s southern regions, is individually rolled by the pastaio with a swift gesture of the thumb. This creates a rough, concave profile, hence its name, arriving from the Italian “cavare,” or “to dig out.” Other pasta names nod to those of us on the receiving end of such delicacies, like the wide, eggy ribbons of “pappardelle,” from the Tuscan dialect word “pappare,” meaning “to gobble up.”
Ziti, a pasta variety hailing from Sicily, is formed in long, narrow tubes that are then broken or cut to size when served with a slow-cooked sugo alla genovese or a hearty ragù. The pasta’s Sicilian name translates literally to “grooms” or “brides,” an association owing to ziti having been the pasta of choice at weddings. The celebratory shape was served with stewed pork and cooked in large quantities, fulfilling a tradition in which the happy couple offers a heaping plate of pasta to each of their neighbors. Today, ziti is the pasta associated with feast days in various regions in Italy, including the area of Molise, where popular belief calls for making ziti dishes on the Feast of the Epiphany to sidestep seeing the devil on your deathbed.
Back down to earth are pastas named simply for the everyday objects they were thought to resemble. Fettuccine, narrower than tagliatelle at 6.5 millimeters, is a Roman export that traces its moniker to the Italian “fetta,” meaning “slice” or “ribbon.” The thinner “spaghetti,” a steadfast companion to tomato sauce and meatballs, translates to “little strings,” from the Italian “spago,” meaning “thin string” or “twine.” The diminutive of “buco,” meaning “hole,” supplies the name for the fan-favorite pasta known as “bucatini,” notable for its tubular, drinking straw-like shape. The stuffed pockets of “tortellini” were thought to resemble little “torte,” or “pies,” and classic penne, with its ends cut at an angle, was developed in 1865 by Genoan pastaio Giovanni Battista Capurro to imitate the steel nib of a quill pen. The name of the modern cupboard staple translates to “pens” in Italian, having evolved from the Latin “penna,” meaning “quill.”
Look to a looking glass for the etymology of “capellini,” meaning “little hairs,” from the Italian “capelli.” Say “ah” and you’ll see the inspiration for the narrow, sauce-loving noodle “linguine,” a diminutive of the word “lingue,” meaning “tongues.” Orecchiette, a small rounded and bent pasta and a Puglian point of pride, recalls yet another appendage—the “orecchio,” or “ear.”
A shape for a new era
In 2018, American food podcaster Dan Pashman set out to engineer a new pasta shape optimized to adhere well to sauce and have a distinctively toothsome bite. Three years, countless revisions and nearly $10,000 later, he debuted “cascatelli,” a curved pasta with ruffled edges, its name arriving from the Italian word meaning “little waterfalls.” The pasta was and remains a hit, quickly selling out its first batch of 3,700 boxes.
With a few simple tools at my disposal, my at-home forays in fresh pasta lack such deliberation—think “Play-Doh” more than “pastaio.” But with an egg, some flour and some water to bring it all together, I take my first bite and am reminded that, in the end, all pasta is perfection, and any shape—and character—will do.
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