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NGSS: Core Idea: ETS1.A, ETS1.B

CCSS: Writing: 2

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Designing the
Perfect Pasta

How a food podcaster spent nearly three years creating a
brand-new noodle shape

November/December 2021
By Andrew Klein

COURTESY OF DAN PASHMAN/SCOTT GORDON BLEICHER

PASTA LOVER:

Dan Pashman wih his new noodle, cascatelli.

There are about 350 different pasta shapes. But Dan Pashman felt no one noodle was perfect. Pashman is the host of an award-winning food podcast called The Sporkful. In 2018, he began thinking about the role pasta shapes play in how people enjoy different dishes.

Some pastas are good at holding sauces. Others have hearty bites. And some are easy to scoop up with a fork. “Most pastas do one of these things well,” says Pashman. But he wanted a pasta that could do it all. That idea started Pashman on a mission to design a better noodle.

  1. IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM

First, Pashman decided to taste as many pastas as he could to see which he liked the most. He needed a set of criteria to judge each kind. No one had ever made standards for reviewing pasta before. So Pashman came up with his own: “sauceability,” or how readily sauce sticks to pasta; “toothsinkability,” or how satisfying it is to sink your teeth into the pasta; and “forkability,” or how easy it is to get a noodle on your fork and keep it there.

Pashman tried dozens of pastas. He decided he liked ruffles, like you’d find on the edge of lasagna. He also enjoyed tube shapes, like ziti. Both of these features help capture sauce and provide a chewy bite. He decided to create a shape that combined the two.

2. DESIGN A PLAN

Pashman spent weeks sketching dozens of pasta designs. Then he spoke with De Mari Pasta Dies, in Massachusetts. The company manufactures pasta dies, or molds, made of bronze metal. Pasta dough is squeezed through these molds to produce different shaped noodles.

De Mari told Pashman that his first designs were too complicated to make using a die. He tried again. After working for several more months, he finally had a shape De Mari said might work: a long half-tube with two ruffled edges.

Think Like a Engineer!

Engineers and designers often solve problems by inventing things. First, they identify a problem. Then, they set criteria, or requirements, that determine whether their solutions could solve the problem. Next, they build and test their design. If the design doesn’t solve the problem, they improve the design.

1. What problem did Pashman want to solve with his invention?

2. Why did he test different pastas before designing his own?

3. What obstacles did he encounter while creating cascatelli?

4. Is there a food that you think could be improved? What change would you make? What would it take to turn your idea into reality?

3. CREATE YOUR IDEA

De Mari created the pasta die. Then, Pashman partnered with Sfoglini (sfo-LEE-nee), a pasta maker in upstate New York. Once the die was ready, Sfoglini produced prototype pasta samples for Pashman to test out at home. 

But when he boiled the noodles, the pieces fell apart. Pashman realized the pasta needed to be shorter and thicker to prevent them from breaking.

Karen Palmer/Courtesy of Sfoglini

Pasta Properties

Here’s how cascatelli meets all of Pashman’s criteria for a perfect noodle.

TOOTHSINKABILITY

Ruffles create more resistance when you bite, creating a chewy texture.


SAUCEABILITY

A half-tube surrounded by ruffles helps trap sauce.


FORKABILITY

Cascatelli is large enough to stab with a fork but not too big so it won’t fall off on the way to a person’s mouth.

4. MAKE IMPROVEMENTS

It took months for De Mari to create a new metal die to make the pasta thicker. But making it shorter was easy. Sfoglini just had to cut the dough shorter as it came out from the die. 

In December 2020, new samples were delivered. Pashman cooked up the pasta. It was just as he had hoped—saucy, chewy, and easy to eat! Pashman named his creation cascatelli—a play on the Italian word (cascata) for “waterfall.” 

A few months later, all 3,700 boxes of cascatelli sold out online in less than two hours! Based on its popularity, Pashman hopes his pasta will stick around. “There are a lot of food fads done just to look cool,” he says. “I wanted to make something that was actually good to eat.” Mission accomplished! 

Inventors
Students will watch a video about inventors.
Engineering
Design Process

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