I mean I'm gonna assume that radiators are that shape because it's optimised for having the most surface area for the least structural material and least space taken up...
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
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And then I would also assume optimizing for surface area then results in more pasta surface for sauce to cling to...
Then it would further indicate that the more pasta sauce clinging to the pasta the better it s
Well, we can certainly infer that more pasta sauce clinging to the pasta seems to be a desirable outcome for some, based on someone having put forth the time to make it happen.
Why not make a pasta shaped like a spoon so you don't need a fork? See, I can try to top the craziest guy out there just to find that someone already trademarked my idea.
Bursting boba balls made of pasta and filled with marinara.
Just imagine what an Italian plumber could invent.
Ziti maybe
Definitely ziti!
Penne is also theoretically possible. Elbow macaroni as well, but that may be more associated with il sindacato dei tubisti d'italia
I apologize for not linking to an Italian pipefitters union, I spent 5 minutes attempting to find one. Dear Italy, if your pipefitters aren't union change that, it's hard skilled labor and the union keeps them safe and fed.
Manicotti too
L pipes, plungers, and those rotary clog cleaners for clearing out the sauce from the L pipe pasta.
Italian pasta is just junk food before junk food was trendy. It's always 90% made of carbohydrates in funny shapes with a side of sauce with bits of protein floating in it.
Replace wheat with corn and tomato soup with those nasty flavoured powder and you have Cheetos. Yep, I'm saying Italian pasta is the father of Cheetos, and grandpa of breakfast cereal.
Change my mind.
So you're saying breakfast cereal is the child of Cheetos.. huh
Technically it could be also its nephew as long as it's not Arizona. There it's both child and nephew.
I wont change your mind good mam/sir, because I think you're right!
I agree, and that's why I buy that protein pasta with the pea and legume flours added in the mix. It's loaded with vitamins & minerals, so you're getting more than just carbs for dinner.
The best part is unlike that whole wheat and vegetable pasta crap, it tastes exactly the same to my taste buds as regular pasta. Only catch is that it's about $1.25 more per package, but absolutely worth it for the extra nutrients.
Change my mind.
Yeah, no, you can stay right where you are, no problem.
and pretending like different shapes are important is just so stupid
Ok thats simply wrong. Imagine having bucatini or lasagna with oil and grated parm, or angel hair with a thick cheese sauce or radiatori with a chunky meat sauce.
You're technically right but catering for all the variations would cap at 20 shapes when we're well above 200. Naming pasta is more like a hobby.
Yes, there are tons of shapes that are better served by others for literally any application, such as bowties, or ones that are at best entirely interchangeable.
We could totally get away with like 8 shapes with no dish getting worse for it.
those pastas would all be fine with any of those sauces… in any combination
??? You'd just be eating chunks of chewy pasta if you used oil with low-surface area pasta, all the angel hair would stay together and the cheese sauce would just be on the outside, and the meat chunks wouldn't be absorbed into the radiatori fins, just the thinnest layer oil/fat.
nope.
sauce is always on the outside of angel hair.
doesn’t matter with the radiatori.
it’s all the same shit….
the one one where it would matter a lot is lasagna…
but you could throw any pasta into a lasagna recipe and it would still be fine…
Exactly its either spirals or nothing! The one true pasta shape.
Aren't most pasta shapes designed to hold whatever they go with, usually sauce?
But I haven't heard of radiatori before, that's cute. Must be a relatively new invention (newer than radiators).
But I haven't heard of radiatori before
You've probably not heard of like 99% kinds of pasta. They make it in all shapes imaginable, and any, even tiny, variation in size, length, curvature, thickness... seems to be deserving of its own name. If any Italian is reading this, don't get me wrong, I love you—ye are nice, funny, beautiful (they are gorgeous! don't know why, but they are), your food is incredible, your language is lovely (even the Italian accent when speaking other languages is the best)...—but the pasta names thing is getting a bit out of hand.
Relatively new, I guess? (Supposedly invented in the 1960’s, so it’s probably older than you)
Cheezus of Mac, do You know the History of Pasta?
No, I looked it up on Wikipedia (it actually claims it may have been invented before WW2 but there’s no reliable source for it)
Not sure why it's that surprising. Just make pasta with holes and you'll get sauce trapped in the holes...
Most people would just use spaghetti and never bother to consider if there is a better pasta shape.
I know myself. I'd always wonder in private, but rarely voice it, because I'd know people would just call me a crazy dreamer.
My favorite kind of pasta! I use wiggle towers for almost all of my pasta dishes I make.
A Roman cart rolled off the Roman Road to Rome and got its wheels bogged down in the mud. Rotelle!
I gotta be honest. Any pasta with compound bends (Im not sure this is the right name, Im just making it up), where pasta isn't just a single layer thick, creates awful chewy textures or hard areas as they are impossible to cook evenly.
The best pasta is small lasagna esque pasta where it has frills on both sides but is a sinlgle layer so it holds sauce, but cooks completely evenly, and faster than many other pastas.