The hand-formed shapes of the South

Most pasta you buy was pushed through a machine. But a whole family of shapes still begins with a human hand, a thumb dragged across a board, a palm rolled over dough, a strand wound around a thin rod. Most belong to the South, where semolina and water, worked by hand, was the everyday pasta. They are the reason an almanac exists.

Dragged and pressed

Orecchiette, the little ears of Puglia, are made by dragging a knife across a coin of dough and flipping it over a thumb, leaving a rough concave cup. Cavatelli is a smaller hull rolled and hollowed the same way. The rough, hand-pressed surface grabs a sauce that a smooth machine shape would shed, which is why orecchiette with broccoli rabe is one dish, not two ingredients.

Rolled and twisted

Pici, from Tuscany, are fat strands rolled out one at a time from nothing but flour and water. Trofie, from Liguria, are short spindles rolled and tapered by hand for pesto. Strozzapreti, the priest stranglers, are twisted strips. Each is irregular by design, and the unevenness is a feature, not a flaw.

Wound on a rod

Busiate, the long Sicilian coils, are wound by hand around a thin reed; malloreddus, the ridged Sardinian husks, are pressed on a textured board. These are the shapes made by a handful of people in one town, sometimes going by a different name in the next valley. This is where the catalog stops being a supermarket aisle and becomes a map.