Ingredients Durum-wheat flour and water.
How Made Factory-made tiny pasta of various forms, cooked in broth.
Also Known As Ditaletti and ditalini (diminutives of “thimbles”), tubettini (little tubes), paternoster (Our Father), gnocchetti, and barbe di cappuccino (monk’s beard); in Sicily, iritaleddi; in Calabria, padrenostri and padrenostreddi.
How Served Generally in broth.
The name means literally “Hail Marys.” The custom of reciting prayers to mea sure the cooking time of foods is extremely old. The most common was the Ave Maria (Hail Mary), followed by the Pater Noster (Our Father) and Gloria Patri (Gloria), the three prayers that make up the rosary. Until a few de cades ago, it was common for families—and not only peasant families—to say the rosary together in the evening while the food was being prepared. These tiny pastas, suitable especially for broth-based soups that served as dinner, were fully cooked in just the time it took to say one Hail Mary. The shapes are various and range from tiny pastas pierced with a hole to compact forms.
