You may not think about it every time you open a box of pasta, but
the shape you choose plays an important role in the outcome of the dish.
The right shape can make a good sauce great; the wrong shape can dampen
the appeal of even the best sauce.
Long or short, smooth or ridged, thick or thin, with or
without curves and crevices, different shapes of pasta capture and
absorb sauce differently. Matched
correctly—rigatoni with a hearty sausage sauce—and you have a hit, a
pleasing interplay between the texture of the pasta and the components
of the sauce. In this case, the pieces of sausage are captured in the
hollow of the pasta. Matched less well—the same meat sauce paired with
capellini (angel hair pasta)—and you get the vague sense that something
is wrong. I say vague, because this kind of mistake is not always
apparent; the food may look good and smell good, but it just doesn't
come together well. In the case of the capellini, the delicate noodles
can't support the meat sauce, which gets left behind in the bowl as the
pasta gets eaten.
