Pasta

Italian food · wheat · comfort food · shapes

Made from flour. Pasta starts with wheat flour mixed with water or eggs to create a soft dough, kind of like the dough you'd use to make cookies.

Comes in wild shapes. From long spaghetti to tiny ditalini to fancy farfalle (butterfly shapes), pasta can be formed into hundreds of different styles, and each shape works best with different sauces.

Italian superstar food. Pasta became super popular in Italy and is now a staple of Italian cooking, with evidence that people in Italy were making pasta way back around 400 BCE.

Works for everyone. While traditional pasta is made from wheat, modern versions can be made from rice flour, beans, or lentils so that people with different dietary needs can enjoy it too.

Cooked in boiling water. Most pasta is cooked by dropping it into hot boiling water until it's soft and chewy, a process that takes just a few minutes.