Acini to Ziti: Check Out This Pasta Glossary!

Do you know which pasta is best for a casserole? Or where frilly campanelle noodles got their name?

The National Pasta Association (who knew there was one?!) has put together this handy reference guide to all our most beloved noodles, spaghettis, and pastas. Take a look!

We stumbled upon this glossary to traditional Italian pasta shapes while searching for whole wheat pasta shells the other day and can't get enough of its noodle-y trivia!

• Pasta Shape Glossary from the National Pasta Association

We'll be keeping our eyes peeled for some of the shapes we've never seen before, like the tripolini and rocchetti. Better yet would be figuring out how to make them ourselves! Most of the tube-like shapes are probably extruded by machine, but many of the others could still be made by hand.

What's your favorite pasta shape?

(Images: National Pasta Association)

Originally published January 6, 2010.

Comments (4)

cool!

Those drawings are gorgeous! Fantastic resource

Love it - thanks!

For Christmas I bought my fiance the Encyclopedia of Pasta by Zanini De Vita Oretta - it's a beautiful red, 'novel' sized book. It was originally written in Italian, has now been translated into English, and is basically a research summary of over two hundred different kinds of pasta, with notes on where their names came from, what they're traditionally served with, which area of the country you find them in and etc.

I mention it because the drawings are very similar to these ones - definitely bookmarking that site too!