Penne is the plural form of the Italianpenna (meaning 'feather', but 'pen' as well), deriving from Latinpenna (meaning 'feather' or 'quill'), and is a cognate of the English word pen. When this format was created, it was intended to imitate the then-ubiquitous steel niboffountain and dip pens.[1]
Penne are one of the few pasta shapes with a certain date of birth: in 1865, Giovanni Battista Capurro, a pasta maker from San Martino d'Albaro (Genoa), obtained a patent for a diagonal cutting machine. His invention cut the fresh pasta into a pen shape without crushing it, in a size varying between 3 cm (1 in) mezze penne (lit.'half pens') and 5 cm (2 in) penne (lit.'pens').[1][2]
Description and variations
[edit]Cooked mezze penne rigate, showing its ridged surface
In Italy, penne are produced in two main variants: penne lisce ('smooth') and penne rigate ('furrowed'), the latter having ridges on each penna. Pennoni is a wider version of penne.[3] In English-language contexts, a version is called mostaccioli by various manufacturers, which may be either smooth or ridged in texture.[4][5]
^Giorgioni, Livio (2002). La grande abbuffata : percorsi cinematografici fra trame e ricette (in Italian). Pontiggia, Federico, 1978-, Ronconi, Marco, 1972-. Cantalupa (Torino): Effatà. p. 25. ISBN9788874020225. OCLC50875311.
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