Pasta by region
Pasta from Lazio
Lazio is Roman pasta, and Roman pasta rests on two ingredients: pecorino romano and guanciale, the cured pork jowl. From them come the city's four canonical sauces, each built on the same pantry: cacio e pepe, gricia, amatriciana, and carbonara. The shapes that carry them are sturdy and chewy. Rigatoni and mezze maniche, ridged tubes wide enough to hold a forkful of sauce, bucatini with its hollow center pierced for amatriciana, and fresh fettuccine for the buttery dishes. The Roman rule is friction and fat: a rough, porous surface so the rendered pork and sharp sheep's cheese cling instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl. Little tomato, no cream, plenty of black pepper.
The shapes of Lazio
| Shape | Family | Section | Cook (min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bucatini | Long strands | round pierced strand, like a thick spaghetti with a narrow channel of roughly 1.5 to 2 mm running its full length | 7-11 |
| Fettuccine | Ribbons | flat ribbon | 9-11 |
| Mezze maniche | Tubes | short wide ridged tube | 11 |
| Rigatoni | Tubes | wide straight-cut ridged tube | 12-14 |
Learn it from someone
- Letizia Mattiacci, Madonna del Piatto
Cookbook author who teaches small-group classes in Rome, covering the Roman sauces and fresh pasta by hand. She ran a cooking school in Umbria for around twenty years before that.
People who teach this, listed because we think they are good at it. We take nothing for these.