Pasta Shapes from Long Strands to Grains

Spaghetti is the long, thin, solid cylinder that most people picture first. Its name comes from the Italian spago, thin string, and the page records Italy as its country of origin. It is a reminder that spaghetti and meatballs is an Italian American invention rarely found in Italy itself.

Vermicelli is related to spaghetti but generally thinner, and its diameter depends on where it is made: Italian vermicelli is slightly thicker than spaghetti while American and English usage means a thinner strand. A cited encyclopedia entry records that it was being made in Sicily by 1100 AD, and the same name should not be confused with Asian rice vermicelli.

Fettuccine flattens the strand into a ribbon, somewhat wider than tagliatelle and traditionally made with egg and durum wheat flour in the Roman and Tuscan traditions. The name means little ribbon, and the page notes its best-known dish, fettuccine Alfredo of butter and Parmesan, became especially popular in the United States.

Macaroni moves from strands to narrow tubes, traditionally made from durum wheat semolina and sold straight or curved as elbow macaroni. The page cites the English word makerouns in the 1390 Forme of Cury, and links the shape most closely with macaroni and cheese.

Penne is a short tube cut on the diagonal, and its name is the Italian word for pen or quill because the angled end resembles a nib. It comes smooth as penne lisce or ridged as penne rigate, and the ridges help thick, chunky sauce cling.

Ziti is a long, narrow, straight-cut tube that originated in Sicily and is usually broken or cut to about five centimeters before serving. Its name is drawn from an old regional word for brides or grooms, tying it to Sicilian wedding feasts, and baked ziti is a signature dish of Italian-American cooking.

Rotini is the North American name for the corkscrew pasta known in Italy as fusilli, made by winding strands of dough into a tight spiral. The page links the shape to southern Italy and to winding dough around a thin reed, and notes regional names such as busiata in Sicily.

Cavatappi is a hollow, ridged tube with one to three spiral turns, distinct from the solid twist of fusilli. Its name means corkscrew in Italian, and the page records that it began in the 1970s when a die meant for straight tubes was grooved into a spiral by mistake.

Orzo ends the path at the smallest scale, a short-cut pasta shaped like a large grain of rice and made from wheat flour often blended with semolina. In North America the name means this pasta, but in Italy the same word usually means barley, and it appears in Greek avgolemono soup and in pilaf.