Best pasta shape?

[WhoWants2Know]

A man stopped me in the supermarket to ask what was the best pasta shape. (He said he hated pasta from taste testing it for years but was cooking for someone else)

I said Spirali, my oldest says penne.

If you had to choose one shape, which is your go-to?

Shells are the best!! Bows are pretty crap.

farfalle

Rigatoni if I had to pick just one but entirely depends on the recipe of course. The thick, hollow tube of rigatoni is great for scooping up meaty tomato and red wine based sauces or salmon in a creamy sauce - or pasta bakes in the winter.

But I also love a light linguine with something like prawns, fresh herbs and a citrus dressing in the summer. So it’s difficult to choose just one.

Funny how we're all different. I would not chose penne or shells. Farfalle all the way for me or Fusilli.

Italian supermarkets are full of dried pasta @CPandme, shelves and shelves of it.

It's only ponces who pretend Italians never eat it.

And parsley is good, especially if the pasta has lots of lovely garlic. Stops you smelling. According to my Italian friend the more garlic you eat the less you smell and also remove the middle bit of the garlic clove and you won't smell. I suspect that's all a happy lie.

Tried farfalle for a change a few weeks back, didn’t do it for me!

Penne is the go to, Rigatoni also a fave

1. farfalle
2. rigatoni
3. shells

Couldn’t choose just one, so here’s my top 3.

Depends entirely on the sauce

Fusilli lunghi. I only recently discovered it and I love it

'Mac' is second best!! It's the way the cheese pools in the shells 🤤

Farfalle for me, penne for DH.

I love rigatoni, just feels like a posh penne
And also radiatori? I think it might be called!

Totally depends on the sauce. We mainly eat spaghetti, linguine, penne, macaroni, orzo, cavatappi, farfalline (great in soups), rigatoni, lasagne and sometimes pappardelle. We have a cupboard full of various types!

Rigatoni always

My son is obsessed with pasta. I asked him and he said Fusilli because the sauce and cheese goes inside the spiral, and they cook quicker.

We rarely eat fresh pasta. As @MrsTerryPratchett says, I'd probably say Italians eat less fresh pasta than Brits. And nobody under the age of 85 makes their own. Why would you? Dried orecchiette are fine.
The only "fresh" I buy is tortellini.

Shells

I'm so shocked at the number of people who have said farfalle! The absolute worst, worse than no pasta at all.

My current favourite is messicani, which when I've had it in Italy has been called dischi volanti, flying saucers.

Fusilli. It never disappoints, it never lets you down.

Not hugely keen on pasta but did a mushroom, chicken & cream sauce thing the other day and used long macaroni and it was really nice!

Waitrose sell it both fresh & dried

Tagliatelle. For DH it's fusilli. We usually alternate between these two, and spaghetti for bolognese.

I'm not keen on shells or penne.

The one that looks like bow ties.

I'd never buy penne, it's boringness offends me 😂

This.

Bucatini always