Introducing Cascatelli — The Revolutionary Pasta Shape That Is "Perfect" For Any Sauce

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Dan Pashman, a podcaster, spent three years creating a new pasta shape (Credit: Stoglini.com)

With over 120 pasta sizes and shapes available, one would think there was a design to satisfy every palette. However, Dan Pashman, host of James Beard and Webby Award-winning podcast The Sporkful, was unhappy with the available options. So, the food-lover spent three years, and a substantial amount of his personal savings, to create cascatelli — a new pasta shape that is purportedly more functional than any available today.

Pashman's noodle-design journey — documented in a five-series podcast dubbed Mission ImPASTAble — began accidentally in 2018. During a live performance at New York's Caveat Theater, the podcaster expressed his frustration with spaghetti. “The Lady and the Tramp did a great disservice to American culinary history by romanticizing spaghetti," he grumbled. "You know, what we should have taken from that movie is that it's a pasta shape that's only fit for dogs."

Cascatelli combines the best attributes of mafaldine and bucatini (Credit: Stoglini.com)

He augmented the seemingly outrageous comment with an explanation saying: “[Spaghetti is] round on the outside. That means it is a low surface area in relation to the volume, that means that sauce doesn't adhere to it well. It means less of it contacts your teeth when you first bite it."

The audience's reaction to his criticism of the world's most popular noodle inspired Pashman to create a pasta shape that fulfilled three criteria: saucebility, forkability, and toothsinkability. "So forkability, which is how easy is it to get it on your fork and keep it there?" Pashman explained to CBS News. "Sauceability. How readily does sauce adhere? And toothsinkability, which is how satisfying is it to sink your teeth into it? And a lot of pasta shapes are great at one or two of these three things. But very few nail all three."

Cascatelli boasts sauceability, forkability and toothsinkability (Credit: Stoglini.com)

Pashman munched through every pasta shape available before settling on two favorites — mafaldine, a fettucine-like noodle with ruffles down the edges, and bucatini, a thick spaghetti with a hole in the center. Teaming up with North Dakota State University's Pasta Lab and a few food professionals, the podcaster combined the best attributes of both pastas to create cascatelli. "I would describe the shape overall as a curved comma or half a heart," Pashman told Salon.com. "On one side, there's ruffles, and in the space between, you've got a dugout, kind of a half-tube that just traps sauce in there. It's amazing."

Creating the perfect shape was not Pashman's only challenge. He also had to convince a pasta company to manufacture the new creation. Luckily, artisan food company Sfoglini agreed to take a chance and the rest, as they say, is history! The first batch of 3,700 boxes of cascatelli, which hit the market in early March 2021, instantly sold out, and there is currently a wait of almost 10 weeks for those wishing to get their hands on the world's most "perfect" pasta shape!

Resources: Smithsonian.com, NPR.com,Odditycentralc.com, www.sfoglini.com

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241 Comments
  • lunae
    Luna E7 months
    I'm just a big pasta fan! It just tastes really good! 🍝🤤
    • iheartpuppies
      I'm Italian, and pasta is really important to me, so this is so cool!!
      • iheartpuppies
        Although, when is anything DOGO news post NOT cool? Congratulations DOGO news, your cool.
      • kainorion
        kainorion12 months
        One thing I learned from reading this is that there are making a new shape of pasta.
        • kirak
          kirakabout 1 year
          Who wouldn't have this? I will eat this even though I am a picky eater.
          • eklol
            eklolabout 1 year
            I don’t like pasta sauce…
            • songunicorn17
              songunicorn17over 1 year
              I'm a big pasta eater (I eat it to much) any pasta I LOVEEEEE I will eat any I can get my hands on from macaroni to spaghetti!
              • songunicorn17
                songunicorn17over 1 year
                I'm a pasta expert and it ain't perfect the PERFECT patsta to 50 out of 70 people is pasta where the sauce is not going everywhere though is it is neat.. It could be wider NOT BIGGER there is a difference!
                • peytonpanda12
                  peytonpanda12over 1 year
                  Wow those are some cool noodles!
                  • soggybread_7
                    soggybread_7over 1 year
                    EPIC
                    • theatredude
                      theatredudeover 1 year
                      I'm Italian too, and this pasta looks AMAZING! It's perfect! The way they keep the sauce in the noodle is genius...!!!