Pasta

[Shipstabber]

Why does pasta come in all different shapes?

Did the Italians originally think that penne tasted different than farfalle, etc.?

[crisgal]

i think they do taste different. It all depends on what type of sauce you're having with it.

Penne bolognese wouldn't really work as well as spaghetti would it?

And a thick, paste type sauce - like pesto - goes best with a "ribbed" pasta shape, like pipe rigate so that the sauce sticks to the grooves and gets inside the tubes, so that when you pick up a forkful of pasta, you don't leave the sauce behind.

I'm sure a lot of the new fancier shapes are american and english ideas. 

You wouldn't put gravy on a jacket potato, but you do on mash - they're both spuds, but you treat them differently.

[artee]

I asked a friend recently as to whether there was any taste difference, and she said absolutely not. It is only the sauce that tastes different....Yet I thought that I had detected a slight difference at one stage.....
Anyway it is as crisgal says, the shape is to accomodate the different sauces etc.

[crisgal]

just to add, when i was learning how to cook pasta - in Italy - i was told that the finished dish was correct if

you couldn't taste the pasta

you couldn't taste the sauce

you couldn't taste the cheese

in other words, when you get a fork full, you should pick up just the right amount of each for the taste to be right. I think putting the wrong shape would affect this.

[marmaduke]

Since it�s only flour and water (with egg sometimes) where could a different taste possibly originate from? And penne bolognese is absolutely fine and often preferable.

Surely there�s nothing wrong with a bit of variety. Do you only want to eat Mighty White or perhaps branch out into other breads?