A Fine Addition to Pasta Inventory

A New Pasta Shape for Your Pantry

Cascatelli was invented after three years of research and development by Sfoglini and the podcast host Dan Pashman.

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Credit...Scott Gordon Bleicher

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By Florence Fabricant (NYT)

April 5, 2021, 2:24 p.m. ET

Add cascatelli — inspired by the Italian word for waterfall, cascata — to your pasta vocabulary and your pantry. This new pasta shape was invented after three years of research and development by Dan Pashman, the host of the podcast The Sporkful, with the expertise of Sfoglini, a pasta company based in West Coxsackie, N.Y., in the Hudson Valley.

The creation story has been documented on Mr. Pashman’s podcast as “Mission: Impastable.” He insisted on a shape that could be speared with a fork, and that would hold sauce well and have a proper bite.

Traditionally extruded pasta shapes are made by forcing the dough through a die; a new, high-quality bronze die was made for cascatelli. The shape is a bit larger than most short pastas, but it’s very good, especially for simpler, less ingredient-heavy sauces like marinara, carbonara, pesto and arrabbiata.