Trottole - Temporary Score: 14.99
Description: pasta in the shape of spinning tops - also known as Vesuvio! (based on what i can glean from the untrustworthy interwebs, it seems that in Campania, they're more likely to call it vesuvio - pasta in the shape of Mount Vesuvius)
First Take Points: 5 - a challenger has appeared! the other spiral pastas (for which i have a deep and abiding affinity) should be looking over their shoulders nervously. the long cut pastas might as well go on holiday. do you know what holds sauce better than a spiral? a spiral with cute lil curled edges. trottole is a sauce BEAST. it should surprise absolutely nobody at this point that i ate trottole with a red sauce.
Remix Bonus Points: 5 - immediately after eating trottole in red sauce, i took the rest of the bag to my friends' house and was like "check out this pasta!". the bag was plucked from my fingers and dumped into a pot of boiling water - it was like they KNEW i was coming. they whipped up a broccoli-alfredo on the spot, and that is the story of how i know that trottole will also handle cream sauces like a champ. i'm also engaging in deep philosophical discussion w/ @sideguitars and an Anon in her inbox about cavatappi chili cheese, and i think trottole would be a showstopper in a cheesy scenario, so i'm awarding pre-points.
Amusement Points: 5 - don't even start with me, if this isn't one of the most amusing pasta shapes out there, what are you even doing reading pasta rankings? (i know that sentence doesn't make sense - this PASTA doesn't make sense) i would keep a handful of this on me at all times, something to pull out of my pocket during a dull work happy hour to break the ice: "speaking of Q2 projections, have you even SEEN a trottole noodle in the wild?"
Annoyance Deductions: .01 - is this wholly manufactured to ensure that i have a tie game between fusili and trottole? as my alfredo-loving friends would say, "You Betcha!"
Alternative Uses: well clearly, as the name implies, one alternative use of this spinning top is to cook it and eat it as a pasta. and i have to image that in Campania, when kids are making baking soda volcanos for science class, they dispense with all the nonsense of a papier mache or molding clay Mount Vesuvius and go straight for the goods: a trottole the size of my head with baking soda foam spluttering out the top.
