Amore pasta? Surely there’s enough already

As if there wasn’t enough going on in the world to cope with, they’ve gone and invented a new pasta shape. Cascatelli are short, ruffled pasta that take a sharp curve as if they’re going around a corner, their name meaning little waterfalls. To a less romantic mind – mine – the shape is also reminiscent of that curved pipe under your sink known as the P-trap, but never mind.

Every element of their design has purpose and meaning, according to the inventor, Dan Pashman, who runs a foodie podcast in America called The Sporkful. The ruffles, which he pinched from frilly-edged mafaldine, create tiny troughs for the sauce, while the inner tube, borrowed from bucatini (hollow spaghetti), provides great texture to sink your teeth into. The genius is the pronounced curve, which helps the pasta hold its sauce both inside and out. No wonder there’s a waitlist to purchase from New York’s Sfoglini Pasta.

No matter how many variations, you only ever use three. In my house, it’s spaghettini, cavatappi and penne.

But really. The P-trap – sorry, waterfall – looks charming, but we already have pasta shaped like ears (orechiette), radiators (radiatori), butterflies (farfalle), snails (lumache), wheels (rotelle), rice (risoni), shells (conchiglie) and angel hair (capelli d’angelo). Do we need another one? Given that there are something like 600 different pasta shapes in the world, this could be the equivalent of having 600 streaming services, or 600 cookbooks.

Everyone knows that no matter how many variations you have, you only ever use three. In my house, it’s spaghettini, cavatappi and penne – on repeat. Long, thin spaghettini for simple sauces, such as tomato, or chilli, olive oil and garlic. Curly cavatappi (corkscrews) for trapping rich ragus and bolognese sauces. And penne, for when I don’t feel like spaghettini or cavatappi. It’s a science.

Loading

But there’s always something new to try, such as the velatagliati (sails) and cordatatori (knotted ropes) that were made by Sydney’s Fabbrica Pasta Shop last year, inspired by the late Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli’s classic yacht, Agneta.

It does make you wonder what other new pasta shapes could be wrought from doppio zero flour and eggs. Umbrellas, maybe, or gumboots, to help us cope with a rainy day? Face masks, perhaps, or gloves, as a gesture of support to health workers? Aeroplanes, or cruise ships, so that we can at least travel at our table? The options are endless.

[email protected]