Long before I started writing for Sporked, a gentleman scholar named Dan Pashman had chronicled the creation of a brand new pasta shape on his podcast The Sporkful (no relation). This pasta shape had to embody three key characteristics defined by Pashman as “forkability” (the ability to get a piece onto your fork and keep it there), “sauceability” (how easily the piece gets slathered in sauce), and “toothsinkability” (mouthfeel, but for teeth). Dan’s multi-year pasta creation process brought us “cascatelli.”
In 2021, Dan partnered with Sfoglini, a boutique pasta factory based in New York City, to start producing cascatelli. After many requests to invent a second brand new pasta shape, Dan worked with Sfoglini to make small adjustments to a few regional pasta shapes you’ve almost certainly never heard of. The good people at Sfoglini sent me “The Sporkful Collection,” which contains the groundbreaking cascatelli and both of Dan’s modified pasta follow-ups.
In the spirit of Dan’s scientific work creating these pastas, I took an extra scientific approach to reviewing them. All three pastas were cooked as recommended and tasted with alfredo and red sauce. In addition to the standard pros, cons, and sporks, I have also made a formal recommendation on which sauce works best with which pasta.
Here’s my review of all three Sporkful pasta shapes.
- Vesuvio Review
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Pros: I have to shout out Sfoglini pasta: All three of these pastas feel upper class. I’ll chalk that up to the semolina flour and bronze dies used in production that give it a fantastic texture. The tornado-esque shape of this new pasta makes for a spectacular bite; the “toothsinkability” is top-tier.
Cons: This is the smoothest pasta of the trio, which means less sauce-per-bite. As a certified sauce enjoyer, I was hoping for small cones full of sauce—but no dice.
Best Sauce: This pasta is fine with both alfredo and red sauce, but it would be crazy good in a pasta salad.
Credit: Liv Averett / Sfoglini
- Quattrotini Review
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Pros: Each piece of quattrotini is made up of four connected tubes and, to quote Marty McFly, this is heavy. These KNEX-looking pasta pieces are not just dense, but they also hold the most sauce of any of the pasta shapes in this collection. A single cooked, sauced piece of this pasta is a mouthful.
Cons: It takes a good amount of tossing to get sauce in every little crevasse (but the effort is worth it).
Best Sauce: This hearty pasta really shines with an equally-hearty sauce: Newman’s Own’s Sockarooni. Any chunky red sauce would work the same.
Credit: Liv Averett / Sfoglini
- Cascatelli by Sporkful Review
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Pros: Cascatelli is such a unique experience; it deserves every award it’s won. The mouthfeel is so fun and this might be the most forkable pasta I’ve ever eaten.
Cons: While this cascatelli is fantastic, the shape itself has been licensed to a few other pasta producers to mixed results. Online reviews of the Banza version made with chickpeas and the budget-friendly Trader Joe’s version both mention that the cooked pieces tend to fall apart, dramatically harming two out of three key pasta traits. Maybe “reproducibility” should be the fourth pasta characteristic.
Best Sauce: The smooth texture of alfredo really proved how much sauce this pasta can hold. Cascatelli chicken alfredo could fix my soul.
Credit: Liv Averett / Sfoglini
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