Bigoli

Until recently, there was scarcely a home in the Veneto that didn’t have its own bigolario – a rugged hand-cranked press bolted on to the kitchen table or a work-horse – that would force a stiff dough of wholewheat flour, water, and perhaps a duck egg through a brass die. The resulting strands, like thick spaghetti with a rough-textured surface, are bigoli, the signature pasta of the region. They are supposed to be as thick as a knitting needle used to knit tights, but as few homes have knitting needles as they do bigoli presses nowadays. The haberdashery parallel doesn’t stop, however: there is a lesser-known variant, fusarioi whose name comes from fuso da filare – a knitting spool.