What exactly qualifies as a “Non-Primary-Canon pasta shape” is open to interpretation. Certainly macaroni and spaghetti are both pretty commonplace, but what about a nice twisty fusilli or a fun and flirty farfalle (otherwise known as bowtie pasta)?
It really all depends on who you ask and what part of the world you’re from.
Nonetheless, a man named David Rudnick has created a ranking of what he’s calling “Non-Primary-Canon pasta shapes” and it’s probably the best thing currently on Twitter.
entries this year are drawn from a shortlist that was CAREFULLY compiled by applying BRUTAL and SCIENTIFIC criteria that I WILL NOT reveal pic.twitter.com/OKTc58XalP
— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) October 25, 2017
After posting the list, he proceeds to rank the various noodles, breaking each one down so you can pick the perfect unusual pasta to impress people at your next dinner party.
From last place Croxetti:
22. *LAST PLACE* – Croxetti
— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) October 25, 2017
• pasta NOT a place for GraphicsDesign
• this is just a disc
• m8
• TERRIBLE sauce retention
• wilted mouthfeel pic.twitter.com/Lbm3rtAY91
To cream of the wheat, Mafaldine.
1. Mafaldine
— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) October 25, 2017
• THE CHAMP IS HERE
• a sauce-holding miracle
• enormous surface area yet still fork-navigable
• Longitudinal Ruffling as art pic.twitter.com/XfIVeKSfdp
In between various pastas are given high and low marks, with the all important “sauce retention” attribute being heavily weighted.
18. Rotele
— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) October 25, 2017
• entertains children & adults alike w charming suggestion of popular invention "The Wheel"
• sauce-phobic again
• good w pestos pic.twitter.com/JDZwG46PSz
4. Quadrefiore
— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) October 25, 2017
• a swiss army-knife of sauce pockets
• little cuttlefish of the Pasta Sea
• rarely seen, possibly shy
• bad w chunky sauce pic.twitter.com/qHu0kI5UhI
20. Rombi
— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) October 25, 2017
• Oh dear
• Almost feeling sorry for you
• those ridges aren't gonna help the sauce stay on m8
• marks given for having diagonals pic.twitter.com/6Duxv2sV0F
Obviously people took issue with some of Rudnick’s choices.
What about orecchiette????
— Jeff Bladt (@BLADT) October 25, 2017
https://twitter.com/distantcities/status/923268147901321217
canon pasta, not on shortlist
— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) October 25, 2017
felt it wasn't appropriate to include extremely region-specific pastas not widely available so they are not on the shortlist
— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) October 25, 2017
Some especially didn’t care for his choice of winner.
https://twitter.com/megans_law/status/923222659655262212
No! You have this too long-sauce flinging stuff at your #1 spot where the awesome chunky meat sauce loving, perfect when baked Rombi is 20?
— iylanna (@KimberlyBentley) October 25, 2017
how do I Ban you from this thread
— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) October 25, 2017
If nothing else, amateur chefs might find the rankings useful, although, it doesn’t look like he really took baking into account. If that does happen to be your thing, you can’t go wrong with a nice firm ziti.
Although ziti is probably canon pasta, to be fair.