172. The Shape of Pasta

Busiate. Strangulet. Rasccatieddi di Miscchieddu.

They’re all types of pasta. In America, most people can rattle off maybe five: spaghetti, linguini, penne, tortellini, rigatoni. In Italy, there are hundreds of variations, many particular to a specific region or even a tiny hamlet. But as culture and customs become more homogenized, and as the remote villages are on the verge of disappearing as young people move to the cities, these forms of pasta are dying out too.

Not, however, if Evan Funke has anything to say about it. This twice James Beard-nominated chef at Felix Trattoria in Venice, California, would say, “I have my family, and I have pasta.” And his personal mission is to travel around Italy and learn the art of making these creations at the feet of the masters, or perhaps I should say, the hands of the mistresses, as the keepers of the knowledge are all women, who Evan refers to as “the nonnas,”or grandmothers. (Never mind that they are portrayed as ancients, when in fact most are at least a decade younger than I am.)

The Shape of Pasta, an eight-part documentary series on the Roku channel, follows along on his quest. His ultimate goal is to bring the range of pasta varieties to a wider audience through his restaurant, and the final episode of the series is a special pasta night at his trattoria back home where he carefully trains his staff and serves four of his favorite kinds to his special customers.

The series consists of seven gorgeously-photographed and produced nine-minute episodes as Evan travels with his matterello, or pasta rolling pin, to seven different villages and learns to make their signature pasta. In some cases, the ingredients are distinctive, like the nearly-extinct tumminia grain in Sicily or the fava bean flour in the village in Basilicata or the chestnut flour used in Liguria. For others, the shape is distinctive — spirals, ribbons, ribbed shells — or disks like the corzetti of Liguria, formed by a stamp of one’s distinctive family markings.

But more than the shape, it is the know-how used to produce it, scraping and rolling the dough with just the right part of the hand, using just the right pressure and speed. The testaroli, thought to be the first form of pasta dating back 6000 years to the Neolithic age, looks more like a crepe, cooked on a 700 degree wood stove and then cut into squares. The nonnas make it look simple; they’ve all been doing it since they were preschoolers a half century ago and could do it blindfolded just by touch. But take it from me, getting even the simplest shape right is a craft and an art that takes practice, even for an experienced chef like Funke. He would say it’s well worth the effort of learning, because “If there’s a shape that dies because no one’s practicing, a bit of the world dies.”

Evan claims not to have a drop of Italian blood. I find that hard to believe, watching him get choked up at both the finished product and the generosity and encouragement of the nonnas instructing him. When one gives him a pettine, a comb-like device used to make strangulet, that had been in her family for generations, this big burly guy begins to weep. And so do we.