Bigoli

This popular pasta, originally from Mantova in Emilia-Romagna, is a wholewheat egg pasta that looks like a large, fat spaghetti. In the past, the pasta dough would have been handmade and forced through a little machine called a torchio or bigolaro, but today it is also produced commercially. Among many specialities from the region using bigoli there is the Venetian dish called bigoli in salsa, in which it is served with a sauce of onions, olive oil and anchovies.

Similarly shaped handmade pastas include the variously named pinci, ciriole, cirioline and stringozzi or strengozzi, as it is called in Umbria and Tuscany. These pastas are quite large, with a diameter of about 4 mm (⅙ inch). Unlike bigoli, they are made from a dough of durum wheat, water and a little olive oil, and are long and have an irregular shape, obtained by rolling and stretching the dough. In Umbria, strengozzi are served with Norcia truffle, or ragùs of wild boar, rabbit, mushroom and, naturally, tomato. Great care has to be taken when cooking it as, being made without eggs, it breaks up readily.