How did iconic pasta shapes get created?-

Until fairly recently, I took pasta shapes for granted. I never thought about when, why, or how different shapes came about, to me they just always were. That is silly, of course, because everything has an origin story, regardless of whether it has been lost to history. The good news is that for many iconic shapes, their origin stories are known, and even though hundreds already exist, new pasta shapes are still being invented.

While long pasta like spaghetti was mechanized as far back as the 1500s, prior to the late 1800s most short tubular shapes were made by hand, mainly by women at home. During the Industrial Revolution, advancements were made in the pasta extruding process and in the drying process, leading to an explosion of hundreds of different shapes, including many that are still around today. Bronze and nickel dies were impervious to the moisture of the dough and could produce large quantities of pasta in a short time.

The Food and Wine article linked above dives into eight specific shapes including penne, which was perfected in 1865 by Giovanni Battista Capurro, a pasta-maker from the Genoa area who patented a machine that could cut the penne shape without flattening the ends. It would take 59 more years before commercial fusilli came into being. The frilly spiral shape, which had traditionally been made by hand with a metal reed, made its commercial debut in 1924.

More recently, Dan Pashman of The Sporkful podcast went on a three-year quest to invent a new pasta shape called cascatelli, which means “little waterfalls” in Italian. You can listen to a five-part series on the journey to create this new shape, which Pashman wanted to possess the “optimal ability to stay on a fork, grip sauce, and retain a firm texture.” I have yet to try cascatelli, but my favorite tubular pasta is cavatappi and for long shapes it’s fedelini. What are your favorite pasta shapes?