Radiatori

Radiatori are named, plainly, for radiators: the squat, finned shape is modeled on the old cast-iron heating radiator, or by some accounts on the grille of a vintage car, a Bugatti in the fondest version of the tale. It is one of the youngest shapes in the Italian pantry and one of the few with no ancient roots or regional folklore at all, a deliberate industrial design rather than a nonna's invention. Its origins are debated between the years around the two World Wars and, more commonly, the 1960s, but everyone agrees it was engineered rather than handed down, made to do a job. That job is holding sauce.

A short, chunky piece with a series of parallel wavy fins or ruffles wrapped around a squat body, curved so one side opens into a concave hollow. Every ridge is a little shelf and every hollow a little cup, which is the entire point of the design: maximum surface and maximum crevice for sauce to catch in. It resembles a short fusillo at a glance but is stubbier, more ruffled, and more deeply grooved.

Radiatori is built to be a sauce magnet, and it earns the reputation. The fins scoop and hold thick, chunky sauces that would slide off a smoother shape, while the concave hollow takes in creamier or thinner ones, which makes it an unusually versatile all-rounder. It shines with a hearty ragù, with pesto lodged in the ridges, in baked dishes and pasta salads, and even in a soup, where the grooves ladle up broth. Its one indifference is to a plain, thin dressing that gives the ruffles nothing to grab.

1. 01Al ragùA chunky meat sauce caught in every fin.
2. 02Al pestoPesto nestled in the ruffled ridges.
3. 03Alla salsiccia e funghiSausage and mushrooms, bits held in the grooves.
4. 04Insalata di pastaCold, the ruffles catching chopped vegetables and dressing.