all the different shaped pastas?

if you want a more in depth response read a book like the Pasta Bible

Hi,

Generally speaking, short pastas are the most interesting shapes and are used with dishes that have chunky vegetable and meat sauces.

The reason being that small pasta shapes such as orechiette (ear shapes), farfalle (bow ties), penne etc. are good for 'catching' these sauces.

Long pastas - with the exception really of spaghetti bolognese - are used for seafood dishes. These dishes are usually oily, which helps long pasta types to slither around and shape around the fork.

As for the different pasta types, there are numerous, largely because 'variety is the spice of life'. Why not really? That seems to be the thinking; it also helps (or at least helped in the pasta) pasta manufacturers to differentiate themselves from each other. (Note: if you want to learn more about the many different types of pasta, you might find this page a useful start: http://www.pasta-recipes-made-easy.com/different-t... )

Hope that helps!

Matt

Pasta is made is so many different shapes for both its textural variations and the way they interact with different sauces. Long shapes such as spaghetti, lingiune and fettucine are typically meant to go with thinner sauces like Marinara and Alfredo which simply cling to the noodles. Tube shapes such as penne and rigatoni and shells are designed to work with thicker sauces like Bolognese or Puttanesca since the tubes catch and hold all of the chunky goodness in the sauce.

Of course, there are no rules and you can use whatever shape you want with whatever sauce you want.

bow shaped is normally used in pesto pasta,