Bucatini

Bucatini takes its name from buco, "hole" — the channel that runs the length of every strand. In Naples and the south the same shape is called perciatelli, from a dialect word for "pierced." Long hollow noodles turn up in southern Italian kitchens by the 17th century, but it was Rome and the surrounding Lazio that adopted bucatini and made it a fixture, and by the late 19th century it had become the strand of choice for the region's boldest sauce, bucatini all'amatriciana, born in the mountain town of Amatrice. Romans hold that it must be bucatini, not spaghetti — a conviction they will defend at volume.

A long, round strand like a thick spaghetti, but hollow: a channel roughly one to two millimeters wide bored through the center for its full length. The hole is the entire point — it lets heat cook the strand from the inside as well as the out, and gives fatty, rendered sauces somewhere to travel beyond the surface. Because the channel can close if it's squeezed, homemade bucatini has to be handled gently before it dries.

Bucatini is a heavyweight. Its thickness and weight let it stand up to the rich, rendered-fat sauces of Roman cooking — guanciale, pecorino, tomato — where a thinner strand would be overwhelmed. The extra mass also makes for a more thorough coating when tossed in the pan, which is exactly why Romans reach for it over spaghetti for their most assertive plates.

1. 01All'amatricianaGuanciale, tomato, pecorino romano; bucatini's soulmate.
2. 02Alla griciaThe white ancestor of amatriciana: guanciale, pecorino, black pepper, no tomato.
3. 03Cacio e pepePecorino and pepper; the thick strand carries the emulsion.
4. 04Con le sardeA Sicilian turn: sardines, wild fennel, raisins, pine nuts.