Tagliatelle
tal-yuh-TEL-ee
Also known as tagliatella.
What it is
Tagliatelle belong to the egg pasta tradition of Emilia-Romagna and the Marche, where dough rolled thin and cut into ribbons has been everyday cooking for centuries. The shape's modern fame belongs to Bologna, and Bologna took the matter seriously. On April 16, 1972, the Bologna delegation of the Accademia Italiana della Cucina, with the Confraternita del Tortellino, deposited a notarized standard for the true tagliatella at the Bologna Chamber of Commerce. A cooked noodle must measure 8 mm wide, defined as 1/12,270 of the height of the Asinelli Tower, which works out to about 6.5 to 7 mm when cut raw. A gold replica of the perfect tagliatella sits in a glass case at the Chamber to settle arguments. The romantic origin story, that court cook Mastro Zefirano invented the shape in 1487 to honor Lucrezia Borgia's blonde hair, is admitted fiction, written by the Bolognese humorist Augusto Majani in 1931.
From the Italian verb tagliare, to cut, because the ribbons are cut from a rolled out sheet of dough. Wiktionary traces tagliare to Late Latin taliare and Latin talea.
What sauce it wants, and why
A wide flat ribbon gives sauce more landing area per strand than any round noodle. Tagliatelle add two more tricks. The egg dough cooks up tender but slightly porous, so fat and meat juices cling instead of sliding off. And at roughly 7 mm wide the ribbon is broad enough to carry the chunky solids of a slow cooked ragu, yet thin enough to fold and tangle, trapping sauce between layers. That is why Bologna pairs it with ragu rather than spaghetti, which sheds a thick meat sauce.
Classic plates: Tagliatelle al ragu alla bolognese, Tagliatelle alla romagnola.
No tagliatelle? Use these
Closest swaps by sauce behavior, not by looks. The ones most easily confused with tagliatelle, and how they read.
Tagliatelle vs Fettuccine·Tagliatelle vs Pappardelle·Tagliatelle vs Mafaldine·Tagliatelle vs Tagliolini
Easy to confuse with
Flat ribbons told apart by width: maccheroncini di Campofilone is the finest, almost thread-thin, then tagliolini, with tagliatelle and fettuccine medium (tagliatelle Bolognese, fettuccine the slightly wider Roman cut) and pappardelle the broadest. Mafaldine is a medium ribbon with ruffled edges.
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From the Almanac
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