Pasta comes in all shapes and sizes. The tiniest shapes are often used in soups, long ribbons or strands with sauces, and tubes and fanciful shapes in casseroles and pasta salads. Some shapes are large enough to be stuffed and baked, and others, like ravioli, come already stuffed.

Legend has it the Great Venetian Explorer, Marco Polo introduced pasta to Italy following his exploration of the Far East in the late 13th century. However, pasta is traced back as far as 400 B.C. with evidence in the bas-relief carvings of an Etruscan tomb in a cave about 30 miles north of Rome, depict a group of natives making what appears to be pasta using such instruments a rolling-out table, pastry wheel and flour bin. It is believed that they prepared the first lasagna made of spelt which is a cereal like wheat. Further proof that Marco Polo didnt discover pasta is found in the will of Ponzio Baestone, a Genoan soldier, dated 1279 who requested bariscella peina de macaronea small basket of macaroni, a full 16 years before Marco Polo returned from China.

There are more than 600 pasta shapes world wide.

The word pasta comes from the Italian word for paste, meaning a combination of flour and water and includes many forms of spaghetti, macaroni and egg noodles. The term pasta has always been used on Italian restaurant menus to include all the various pasta offerings.

How is pasta made?

1. Mixing American dry pasta is made with semolina, which is produced by  grinding kernels of durum wheat. Sometimes other hard wheats are also  used. The semolina is mixed with water until it forms a dough. If any  other ingredients are being added to the pasta, such as eggs to make  egg noodles, or spinach or tomato to make red or green colored pasta,  those ingredients are added at this stage.

2. Extruding The dough is kneaded until it reaches the correct consistency, and  then it is pushed, or extruded, through a die, a metal disc with  holes in it. The size and shape of the holes in the die determine  what the shape of the pasta will be. For instance, dies with round or  oval holes will produce solid, long shapes of pasta, such as  spaghetti. When the extruded pasta reaches the right length, it is  cut with sharp blades that rotate beneath the die.

3. Drying The pasta is then sent through large dryers which circulate hot,  moist air to slowly dry the pasta. Because different pasta shapes  vary in degrees of thickness, they dry for different lengths of time.  Most take 5 or 6 hours to dry.  

4. Packing The dried pasta is then packed in bags or boxes and the more fragile  pasta shapes, such as lasagne and manicotti, are often packed by hand  to protect them from breaking.