Capellini

Capellini means "little hairs," and the name is honest: at well under a millimeter thick, it is the finest of the long strands, roughly a third the diameter of spaghetti. An even thinner version, capelli d'angelo — "angel hair" — gave the English-speaking world the name it now uses for the whole delicate family. Fine noodles like these appear in the Italian record by the fourteenth century, and capelli d'angelo turns up as a specialty of Roman convents by the seventeenth, where nuns sent it in broth to new mothers and the ailing because it was gentle and easy to digest. In America the "angel hair" name caught on in the twentieth century, helped along in the light-eating 1990s, when a thin strand under a bright, spare sauce was exactly the fashion.

Long, smooth, round strands so thin they are sold coiled into fragile nests to survive handling, since loose they snap at a touch. Capellini proper runs about 0.85 to 0.92 millimeters; the finer capelli d'angelo is thinner still. There are no ridges and no body to speak of — the whole character is delicacy, which is both the appeal and the hazard.

Fineness dictates everything. Capellini is built for the lightest sauces and broths, where its silkiness is a virtue and it can be eaten almost before it cools, and it is overwhelmed by anything heavy, which slides off or mats the strands together. Think olive oil and garlic, a light fresh tomato, delicate seafood, or simply a good broth; the more restrained the sauce, the better the strand.

1. 01In brodoFloated in a light broth, the oldest and gentlest use.
2. 02Aglio e olioGarlic and oil, kept light so the strand isn't smothered.
3. 03Ai frutti di mareDelicate seafood, a capellini classic.
4. 04Al pomodoro frescoA bright, barely-cooked fresh tomato.