| Penne | |
| Country: | Italy |
| Type: | Pasta |
| Variations: | Penne lisce, penne rigate, pennoni, mostaccioli |
Penne (pronounced as /it/) are an extruded type of pasta with tubular pieces, with ends cut at an angle. They are usually made from wheat flour.
Penne is the plural form of the Italian penna (meaning 'feather', but 'pen' as well), deriving from Latin penna (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 nib of fountain 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 3cm (01inches) mezze penne and 5cm (02inches) penne .[1] [2]
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]
Penne is traditionally cooked al dente and its shape makes it particularly adapted for sauces, such as pesto, marinara or arrabbiata. The latter has been celebrated several times in Italian movies, notably in Marco Ferreri's La Grande Bouffe and Federico Fellini's Roma.[6]