Trofie

What it is

Trofie began as home cooking on the Golfo Paradiso, the short stretch of coast east of Genoa that holds Recco, Sori, Camogli and Avegno. Cooks pinched off bits of dough the size of a chickpea and rolled them against the board with the edge of the palm. The piece spun under the hand and came off twisted, tapered at both ends. Garofalo passes along a legend that ship cooks in the Crusades era made the first ones while rubbing excess dough from their fingers. Poorer kitchens stretched wheat with chestnut flour, and those darker, sweeter pieces are still sold as trofie bastarde. A plate finished with potatoes and green beans goes by avvantaggiate. The shape stayed inside the gulf into the twentieth century. After the war, Recco's restaurant trade turned trofie al pesto into a destination dish. A forming machine designed in Sori went to work at Pastificio Novella in 1977, dried versions followed, and national mills like De Cecco now cut the shape for the world's pesto.

Treccani calls the word Genoese with an uncertain origin. Wikipedia and De Cecco point to a Ligurian dialect verb for rubbing (strufuggia, which De Cecco renders as strofissia), after the rolling motion that forms the piece, while Wikipedia also reports a possible Ancient Greek root for twisting and Spaghetti e Mandolino adds the suggestion of Greek trophe, nourishment.