Pasta Shapes

You can get pasta in any shape you want. When you come to think of it, this is one of the only benefits of living in a modern society. Disease and poverty are still with us, for all we claim to have fixed them, and while cell phones allow you to get in touch with anyone instantly, they also make you look like a jerk. But pasta shaped like bow ties? Pasta colored with squid ink (fake)? Alphabet pasta? You would need a black heart to find a downside to those. I may be a little cynical, but I'm not going to say something's bad if it's not.

And there are always more of them. Just today I had a kind of pasta shaped like little Mexican hats. That was pretty sweet. I would say the opportunity to eat Mexican hat pasta, just by itself, is worth at least the eradication of mumps. Did you ever hear of anyone dying of that anyhow? It would be embarrassing, but if you're prone to dying in stupid ways, it's probably better that you got finished off in childhood.

I think the pasta was originally from Apulia. I am pretty sure that if you make it the traditional way you will get bored long before you get carpal tunnel syndrome, but that both will happen eventually. The reason I bring this whole topic up is that I was wondering: How many shapes of pasta do most Italians eat? You always hear about how such and such a pasta is popular in this or that little village in Italy. I wonder if it's like a territorial thing. People in one little mountain town only eat the Mexican hat pasta, breakfast dinner lunch and tea, while people in the next town won't touch it. But the urge for new shapes is pretty strong. Don't these people ever want to have those tube shaped ones? Or the rotinis. Those are lighthearted. So how many shapes of pasta does the average Italian eat?

Come to think of it, how many shapes of pasta do you eat? I've eaten a lot of different kinds in my day. I'm not sure I could count them all. If I had to guess, I would say 30, counting orzo but not counting couscous. Life is good, in the modern age.