There are around 350 different types of pasta, but some people out there STILL can't find a single one that meets all of their needs.
So if you haven't heard about this . . . a guy named Dan Pashman runs a food podcast called "The Sporkful", and he decided to create the "perfect" pasta.
He spent THREE YEARS researching. He interviewed experts and went to a place called the Pasta Lab at North Dakota State University where they develop new types of noodles. And after all of that, he came up with a shape he says is perfect.
It's called cascatelli, which means "waterfalls" in Italian. The pasta pieces almost look like rainbows, with a lot of hollow space on top to hold sauce.
Dan set three big criteria for the perfect pasta: How easy it is to get it on your fork . . . how well it holds sauce . . . and how satisfying it is when you bite into it. And cascatelli was the best noodle for all three.
Now a company called Sfoglini is selling the pasta . . . but there's a 12-week waiting list if you want to get your hands on it.
(Here's a picture.)
(Salon)
(Photo: Getty Images, Yevgen Romanenko/Moment)