Stringozzi
strin-GOTS-tsee
Also known as strangozzi, strengozzi, strongozzi, stringozzo.
What it is
Stringozzi is the hand-rolled eggless pasta of Umbria, centered on Spoleto and Foligno, made from soft wheat flour and water alone. It is cut and rolled by hand into long strands with a roughly square or rectangular section, like a shoelace, and is also known regionally as strangozzi, strengozzi, or strongozzi. The dish stringozzi alla spoletina dresses it with a garlic, tomato, and chili sauce finished with parsley, while in truffle season it is served with black truffle from the surrounding hills. Although the name overlaps with the priest-strangler folk etymology of Emilia-Romagna's strozzapreti, sources describe stringozzi as a distinct long Umbrian strand rather than the short twisted strip.
The common explanation traces the name to stringhe, the Italian for shoelaces, after the pasta's resemblance to old leather laces, with a possible root in the Latin stringere, to bind. Treccani lists the etymology as uncertain. A separate folk legend, shared with the Emilia-Romagna shape strozzapreti, holds that anticlericals under the Papal States used such cords to strangle the clergy; sources present this as legend, not fact.
What sauce it wants, and why
A long strand with a squarish, slightly rough section holds a clinging sauce along its length. The classic alla spoletina dressing of garlic, tomato, and chili coats the strands directly, and a porcini or game ragu catches in the same way. In truffle season the eggless, neutral dough carries shaved black truffle without competing with it.
Classic plates: stringozzi alla spoletina, stringozzi al tartufo nero.
No stringozzi? Use these
Closest swaps by sauce behavior, not by looks. The ones most easily confused with stringozzi, and how they read.
Easy to confuse with
Square-section strands. Tonnarelli is the Roman and Abruzzese chitarra strand pressed through a wire frame, troccoli the Pugliese one cut with a grooved rolling pin, and stringozzi the Umbrian hand-rolled shoelace.
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.
Stay in the loop
From the Almanac
Updates from Pasta Almanac, when there is something worth sharing.