i fucking love cascatelli and you should too
what the fuck is cascatelli?
It's a pasta shape. Specifically, its a new pasta shape (new here being relative, as it was created in like 2020) invented by Dan Pashman, who runs a food podcast called The Sporkful.
'why the fuck would anyone want to make a new pasta shape aren't there like eleventy billion'
Why yes, there ARE a fuckton of pasta shapes! Turns out when you make something out of a dough you can cut it just about any way you want. So why make a new shape?
Well, the easiest way to learn the whole story is to listen to Dan's odyssey of invention, Mission Impastable. The reader's digest version is as follows:
Dan Pashman wanted a pasta shape that fit his three criteria for good pasta eating: Saucability (how well does it hold sauce?) forkability (can you get the dang thing on your fork? How easy is it to eat?) and toothsinkability (is eating it a pleasant experience texturally?)
And okay, it sounds WILD for a guy to just decide all the current pasta shapes are shit and to be fair that's not what Dan has ever said. He simply couldn't get the experience he wanted with the pasta available.
This was a crazy idea. A pie in the sky thought. And as Dan himself says, it was a test of whether he even knew anything about food at all- putting his money where his mouth is.
Literally.
Mission Impastable chronicles Pashman's trip through the world of making pasta in the USA. He talks to just about everyone involved in the pasta making community and it turns out that community's pretty small. He learned about the different kinds of flours and about the different custom dies used to make pasta shapes. He discovered all sorts of shapes that were new to him.
And- I must stress, during the first two years of a literal global pandemic- Dan Pashman, using his own money and taking a fiscal risk that makes me clench every muscle in my body to even think about, invented a whole new goddamn pasta shape.
Cascatelli, which is a play on the Italian word for 'waterfall', is, I will admit, a really memeable shape. Like the jokes write themselves for a certain subset of the internet and while I haven't gone looking I'm sure there are a fuckton of really obnoxious posts about it.
But the fuckin' joke's on us because you know what?
This shit FUCKS.
This pasta? It does exactly what Dan wanted it to do. The sauce, she clings. Eating it is stupid easy because it stays on your fork and that is worth its weight in gold when your hands don't function the way they should. Cooked per box instructions? It's a textural dream.
I've had it with red meat sauce, with buffalo, as mac and cheese. It's so good. Guys it's so fucking good. The mad lad did it and it's a gift to pasta eaters everywhere.
The Sfoligni pasta company in New York produces the high end version of cascatelli, while Trader Joe's currently sells the budget version. They're made with two different kinds of semolina, and I've had both. I prefer the Sfoligni product because it keeps its shape better- the ruffles tend to peel off of the Trader Joe's version, though that doesn't hinder the pasta much.
And good lord before anyone gets in here about 'Italian authenticity' I dare you to look an Italian grandma in the face and innocently ask how the pasta game was in Italy before, oh.
1942.
Have fun with THAT rabbit hole.
