Food writer’s inventive pasta shape sparks mood-driven cookbook

NEW YORK

Food writer and podcaster Dan Pashman made the unusual step a few years ago of creating an entirely new shape of pasta. The obvious next step? Writing a cookbook to highlight it.

Pashman's “Anything's Pastable” features dishes using 34 different pasta shapes, but especially features his cascatelli, a graceful, ruffled-edged curved shape that resembles a quotation mark. Time magazine declared cascatelli one of 2021’s best inventions.

Pashman came up with the idea of writing a pasta cookbook after he noticed that many of cascatelli's fans were sending him images of them eating it in very traditional ways. Maybe even boring ways.

So Pashman, a Webby Award-winning podcaster behind The Sporkful, got to work creating mind-bending pasta dishes, from Tortellini in Kimchi Parmesan Brodo to Gnocchi with Sauerkraut.

This is not a traditional pasta sauce book by any means and Pashman even avoids making any classic marinara. Instead, there are flavors from places like India, Thailand, the Middle East, North African, Mexico, Japan and Peru.

Pashman organized “Anything’s Pastable” in an intriguing way; by mood. “Adventures in Texture,” “Flavor Bombs Not Belly Bombs” and “Thick and Hearty, Warm and Toasty” are some of the sections.

“I want you to be thinking, I’m in the mood for this type of pasta dish, and you should be able to find the chapter that’s going to give you that,” Pashman says.

Many of the dishes are designed to showcase cascatelli, which he designed with three goals: To have a shape with forkability, toothsinkability and sauceability, all terms he invented.