How the Almanac is made

An almanac is meant to be trusted for years, which is a high bar to hold. A reference that is wrong even once is hard to trust again, so the whole site is built to be right the first time, and every fact on a profile traces back to a source we read ourselves. What follows is how a profile comes together, and where we draw the line when the record runs thin.

Dimensions come from spec sheets

When a maker publishes the measurements for a cut, we cite the brand and the cut number. De Cecco, Garofalo, Rummo, and Mancini all publish theirs. When the figures disagree from one brand to the next, we print the range and name the conflict rather than pick a favorite. And when no one publishes a number at all, the field simply reads unmeasured. An empty field is more useful to you than a confident guess.

Legends are labeled

Pasta history is full of wonderful stories. Marco Polo carrying noodles home from China, tortellini modeled on the navel of Venus, the priest who choked on his strozzapreti. We love these stories and we keep them, because they are half the fun of the subject. We just label them for what they are, folklore and tradition, and never dress them up as settled fact. When a town or a brand claims to have invented a shape and its neighbors disagree, we tell you who claims what and let the argument stand.

Names are the hard part

This is the part of the work that resists tidiness. A single shape can carry two dozen names across regions, and a single name can mean different shapes from one town to the next. Every alias we list has been checked against a source. And when we honestly cannot tell whether two names describe one shape or two, we say exactly that on the page, rather than merge them quietly and leave you thinking the question is closed.

The portraits are painted from the real shape

Every portrait on the site is an original gouache painting rather than a stock photo. For the everyday shapes, the painting is built from their published geometry. For the hand-formed and stuffed shapes, the kind an illustration can get subtly wrong, we paint from a real reference photograph, so the twist count, the hollow, and the seam match the pasta in front of us. Each finished painting is checked by eye against its reference before it goes up, and if we cannot get one right, the shape goes without a portrait until we can.

Pairings come down to physics

Why a given shape holds a given sauce comes down to physical things: surface, cavity, and weight. So the pairing notes on each profile explain the mechanism rather than simply declare a match, and the closest substitute we list is the shape that behaves the same way in the pan, which is not always the one that looks the most alike.

Published by Pasta Almanac as an organization. If you spot something that looks wrong, please tell us. Corrections are how a reference earns its keep, and we are always glad to get them.