Celebrate National Pasta Day Every October 17
Pasta lovers rejoice! If it’s October 17 it’s National Pasta Day.
It’s a day to enjoy your favorite pastas with your favorite sauces. No worrying about carbs, fats, or calories. Just indulge.
We don’t know who first created National Pasta Day or when. It was probably a pasta lover. Or maybe a pasta manufacturer. Or restaurateur looking to increase pasta sales.
No matter who created the day, the intent is clearly for us all to enjoy pasta.
And who doesn’t enjoy pasta?!
So join us in sublime pasta enjoyment.
Mangia!
A Bite of Pasta Facts and Trivia
Did you know pasta comes in more than 600 different shapes? Yes it’s true, macaroni, spaghetti, and shells are not the only pasta around.
There is also:
- Vermicelli, or little worms
- Cannelloni, or tubes
- Fusili, or little spindles
- Rigatoni, or short, wide fluted tubes
- Many, many more
The names of the pastas describe their shape.
Pasta has been around at least since the time of the early Romans, although not quite in the form we know today. Pasta simply means dough in Italian, and the Romans made a simple dough from flour and water.
Although the myth of Marco Polo bringing pasta to Italy from Asia has been proven false, Asians do have their own noodles. And they may have been making them long before the Italians. Some evidence suggests Asians used millet to make noodles as early as 2000 BC.
The earliest documented reference to pasta in Italy is from 1154 in Sicily. In the late 1200s a man named Ponzio Bastone actually included a bequest of a storage bin of macaroni in his will.
These days the typical Italian eats more than 60 pounds of pasta in a year. Despite the popularity of pasta in America, we only eat about 20 pounds each year.
But there’s a lot of us, so combined we eat 6 billion pounds of the stuff each year. That puts us ahead of Italy in total consumption.
We’re also the second largest producer of pasta in the world, making 4.4 billion pounds of it every year.
Pasta finally made it to America in the late 1700s. Thomas Jefferson brought it over after tasting it in Naples, Italy.
You’re probably most familiar with dry pasta (pasta secce), the most common kind you’ll find in the store. Many stores do sell fresh pasta (pasta fresca), too. But there’s usually a much smaller selection. One isn’t necessarily better than the other. Just different. Fresh pasta has egg in the dough, and dry doesn’t.
Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this unofficial feast of a holiday.
Celebration Ideas For National Pasta Day
As with all food celebration days, you must indulge in the food of the day. So … Eat pasta!
Make your favorite pasta, or convince a friend to make your favorite pasta. Or get a group of friends together to go out to eat, and share all your favorite pastas.
If you’d like to celebrate by trying a new pasta recipe, consider one of these:
- Bavette Cacio e Pepe: This simple recipe from Mario Batali dresses linguine with oil, butter, and cheese.
- Browned Butter Butternut Squash Pasta: Butternut squash, walnuts and sage flavor this simple pasta dish.
- Pasta Carbonara: This re-imagined pasta carbonara substitutes pancetta and pecorino romano cheese for the more traditional ingredients.
- Skinny Pasta con Broccoli: A lightened up pasta dish full of broccoli, cauliflower and mushrooms, for those of you insisting on watching your calories today.
- Spaghetti Bolognese: A traditional and hearty dish that never fails to please.
- Orecchiette With Sausage: Little belly button pastas with chorizo and mushrooms.
- Penne All’ Arrabbiata: A slightly spicy dish with a robust flavor.
- Noodle Kugel: Serve this sweet noodle dish as dessert, a side dish or even breakfast. Your choice!
If you need more recipe ideas, the National Pasta Association has a whole collection of pasta recipes to check out.
And if you’re interested in trying to make your own fresh pasta, Julie Blanner makes it look ridiculously simple!
How are you celebrating National Pasta Day this year?
[…] National Pasta Day: Make it a pasta kind of day. Pasta is incredibly versatile, so we’re sure you can find ways to have it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! […]