Time for pasta: Farfalle, rigatoni, penne, linguine
When was the last time you went to an Italian restaurant? The pasta page may well be nothing more than gobbledygook. What an abundance of unpronounceable delicacies – most of which were not on the menu 20 years ago.. It is hard to believe, but pasta has found its way onto menus the world over and into our vocabulary quite recently.
Here is a short dictionary of the most common types of pasta:
Farfalle – pasta in the shape of a butterfly
Ravioli – pasta in the form of a square, filled
Penne – meaning pen or quill; pasta in the form of a hollow tube with a diagonal cut at each end
Linguini – pasta formed in the shape of a tongue
Fettuccini – pasta in long ribbons
The first pasta terms used in English were macaroni, rigatoni and spaghetti, but for a long time, people only knew that those strange terms were something connected with Italy. The real moment for pasta in English literature came in 1928, when Somerset Maugham’s hero Ashenden showed eminent suitability for travelling to Italy by his knowledge: “Do you like macaroni?” he was asked. The response. “What do you mean by macaroni?” answered Ashenden. “It is like asking me if I like poetry. I like Keats and Wordsworth and Verlaine and Goethe. When you say macaroni, do you mean spaghetti, tagliatelli, rigatoni, vermicelli, fettucini, tufali, farfalli, or just macaroni?”
And for most of the pasta types we love today, this was the first time they were used in the English language, and the only usage for the next 20 to 30 years.
