Sirius XM Podcasts to go through the work of opening up a pistachio, and some of them don't want to open.
Oh, like half of them don't want to open.
Half of them don't want to open.
So they're really stubborn and annoying.
I mean, you open it up, and what do you get for all your effort?
One pistachio.
LAUGHTER
This is The Sporkful.
It's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
I'm Dan Pashman.
Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
Today, instead of our usual reheat, we're bringing you something extra special.
It's an episode of In the Test Kitchen, which is the new podcast from our friends over at America's Test Kitchen.
And I'm the guest.
In this episode, now this show is hosted by my good friend Dan Souza, a longtime friend of mine.
He's been on The Sporkful many times, talking about food science.
He even hosted my Boston book event for Anything's Possible.
He's joined by co-host Lisa McManus, who's the kitchen cooking gear expert expert at America's Test Kitchen.
Now Dan and Lisa invited me to the ATK studio in Boston for a chat about all things pasta, including a new development with Cascatelli.
Plus, we get into some of my most closely held food opinions.
Anytime Dan and I are hanging out, there will be strong food opinions, all exchanged in good fun.
So let's get into it.
Dan and Lisa kick off the episode talking about kitchen gear, which they are truly the authorities on.
So you want to pay close attention here.
Enjoy.
I'm Dan Souza, and I'm joined by my lovely co-host, Lisa McManus, and we are in the test kitchen.
Hi, Lisa.
Hi, Dan.
What's going on?
What's going on?
It is so fun to have you here.
We have not done a podcast like this together yet.
We're in a different space today for the show.
Normally, we're in our set kitchen for America's Test Kitchen.
This is the set for Cook's Country.
And I hope this podcast just roves around all of the test kitchen and you get to see it all.
But so if it sounds a little bit different today or looks a bit different, we're still in the same building, just a different home.
So Lisa, you are executive editor for our reviews team here at ATK.
So you are responsible for, like all of the amazing stuff we do with testing products and ingredients.
You put everything through like crazy paces to figure out sort of what is the best product on the market.
You have protocols for your testing that sometimes go just like to the extreme.
One of my favorites is when you're testing like clad skillets, like stainless steel skillets, in the kitchen.
One of the concerns is if there's like a lot of temperature shock with those that they can sort of break at the handle right.
They can pop off or they can warp, all these things that we don't want.
And so you devise this process that is really incredible where you will superheat one of these skillets on the stovetop, dunk it into ice water and then you bang it on a hard surface.
And I always say this story introducing you because I think it shows your level of dedication, just like getting to the bottom of an answer.
Yeah, it probably also shows my level of craziness.
I don't know if that's the right word.
Like purposeful craziness.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
It's purposeful.
Yeah, on the reviews team we will do whatever it takes to figure out which products really are good for people to use and what they're going to spend their money on.
We don't want them to buy pans that are going to fall apart on them.
We all know in that case that people tend to take a hot pan and take the food out and then put it under the cold tap and you see all the exciting steam.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
Yeah, stop doing that.
It's really bad for the pan.
That's thermal shock.
You're going from hot to cold or cold to hot very quickly.
Metal will buckle and warp at that point, and then you've got this pan that you've warped.
Yeah.
We whack it on the concrete after that just to find out about its structural stability.
Is it going to – skillets are not babied in anybody's kitchen.
They really go on – you throw them around.
You're tossing things.
You're scraping these out of them.
You're putting them in the oven.
They're going to live a hard life.
It's not going to be something that they can – you know, be too delicate and too fragile.
So we really want to know how stable are they?
I mean I have whacked pans where, after I finished hitting it three times against the edge of a concrete step or block, the bottom has fallen off.
The handles, it crumbles.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and so Lisa, you are also a co-creator and co-star co-host on GearHeads, which is one of our best YouTube shows.
If you haven't checked it out, absolutely, you know, go check the episodes.
It's probably eight seasons now, something like that.
Yeah.
And I love it.
So you and Hannah, who's also on the reviews team, just go super deep on a piece of equipment.
You get nerdy, you get fun with it.
I'm curious, what's the latest episode that people should check out?
We have just filmed baking for two and really just talking about the gear you need and the sort of mindset you need to prepare to bake smaller batch things.
Whether you're a smaller household or you just don't want a million pounds, you know three dozen cookies.
Yeah.
And without you know if you run out of people to give things away to and you just want to bake in a small batch.
So we'll definitely check that one out.
But while I have you here, I want to ask you have like had your hands on so many pieces of kitchen equipment over many, many years?
And you know the ins and outs of how they all work.
What are your like top three indispensable pieces of kitchen equipment that you think everyone should have?
Some people may not have them all.
You need a real chef's knife.
That is the one thing that I mean.
How are you going to start cooking without cutting something up or, when you're done cooking, cutting it up?
This knife can take the place of a lot of different knives and having one that actually has a little quality to it, that fits your hand, that feels good in your hand, that you feel confident using, that you can keep sharp and use for a lifetime is really important.
And I really feel like when you find a knife that fits you, it's kind of like that Harry Potter choosing a wand moment.
You know, it just gets in your hand and it feels like an extension of your hand.
It goes where you want it to go, cuts what you want to cut.
And your skills level up fast.
You're Your food prep gets easier.
Everything is better if you have a chef knife that's actually good.
Our basic favorite knife is less than $40.
If you totally destroy it, that's not that much money.
We're not telling people to spend $500 on a knife and then treat it like a precious relic.
This is something you can use every day.
You're under $40.
What's your recommendation for that one?
It's Victorinox Swiss Army 8-inch Fibrox handle chef knife.
And I would love that you know the entire name.
Oh, God, yes.
I could probably recite the model number.
But yeah, it's a great knife.
It's made for food service for people who have to chop things all day long.
It's got a very neutral handle.
It's a very grippy handle.
Fibrox is the name of a type of plastic that the handle's made out of.
And if your hand is wet or greasy, it doesn't slip.
It stays in your hand.
It's a very neutral grip.
So people of different hand sizes can use it.
Works for a lot of people.
It's a really good knife.
We stock it here in the test kitchen too for, you know, some people like to use their own knives.
But we have it in the equipment room and Um, I've used it a ton.
It's a great, it's a great knife.
Yeah.
All right.
So what are your, uh, what's your, what's your second and third, um, items that you need?
Maybe I would say get yourself a good size cutting board.
Um.
And what's a good size?
Uh, you know, at least maybe, uh, 12 by 15 or so.
You know, midsize is good.
You can get a big one.
A big one is nice.
Make yourself room.
I like a big one too.
You do, yeah.
But I realize that a lot of people don't want that.
Again, they're cutting on some little cutting board that's three inches square.
And it's like, no.
Do you know how much harder it is?
Right?
Yeah, you guys are worth it.
You're worth it.
You should get the nice knife.
You should get the big cutting board.
Yeah.
Yeah, and when you go to set out to cook, clear some space for yourself.
You are the person this is all working around.
So you don't have to cut at the edge of the counter.
You can –
Clear some space.
Set yourself up a garbage bowl or a compost bucket.
Take your space.
You're going to find it's so much easier to cook and so much more enjoyable.
Put on some music.
That makes a huge difference.
I find that if I'm standing there chopping, I'm thinking about how long this is taking.
If I put music on, flies into the rhythm you like yeah yeah, we always have music in the test kitchen and that's kind of how i learned my.
My biggest point about cutting boards is like you have to put something underneath so that it won't slip.
I hate when people are cutting on board and it slides all over or rocking, rocking.
It's not a little bit safe and it's also just like frustrating to work with.
So you can get an actual mat that works for that.
You can do wet paper towels or wet towels underneath.
But that's my big note on that.
Yeah, anchor that thing down okay, so we've got our knife, we've got a nice cutting board.
And what's the third?
I would love a cast iron skillet, a nice 12-inch, not 8 or 10.
Get yourself 12.
Go big or go home.
Go big and go home.
You don't want a little tiny pan.
You can always cook less in a big pan.
You can't cook more in a little pan.
And having enough room for things to spread out and – and the steam to evaporate, you get better browning.
You've got capacity to do a lot of things, and a good cast iron pan will last you forever and ever.
Well Lisa, we're going to get super nerdy on food and dig into so many things with our special guest today, so I want to bring him out.
Today's guest is a three times James Beard Award winner.
He's the inventor of a pasta called Cascatelli and he's the host and creator of Sporkful, which is a fabulous podcast.
Please welcome to the Test Kitchen, Dan Pashman.
Dan Pashman, welcome to the Test Kitchen.
Thanks so much.
Thanks for having me.
This has been a long time coming.
You and I have talked about food in pretty much every format possible.
We've done it live.
We've done it on your podcast.
We actually did it on TV as well, which we can talk about if you remember that.
But I'm so excited to have you here.
And on my first book.
And your first book.
Way back when you were my special culinary advisor.
It's true.
So we go way back.
We're going to dig into all of this stuff.
Before we do that, I'm really excited because I like to pour a tea for each of my guests.
And I try to match the tea. to the person who is here.
This is so fun.
It's so fun.
And sometimes I nail it and it's like, that's a home run.
How will we know if you've nailed it?
I mean, we're going to talk through it.
And if you're like, this is a complete failure, then it'll be a complete failure.
All right.
Okay, so the tea that I chose for today is called Hojicha.
So it is a roasted Japanese green tea.
So it comes from Kyoto.
And it is really, really interesting.
It is not like other green teas.
That roasting process changes it.
It lowers the caffeine.
It adds all these Maillard roasty, toasty flavors, which are wonderful.
And it is beloved in Japan, not just as a sipping tea, which we're going to do now, but also used in desserts and so many other applications.
Sounds good to me.
So I'm going to pour it right now.
And the reason that I chose it for you is you are not a surface guy in any way.
And you don't go for just the normal, normie kind of stuff.
You always go a little bit deeper.
I think in your newest cookbook Anything's Possible.
Your combinations of flavors are totally interesting and wild and like pushing the boundary.
And I think Hojicha does that.
It sort of surprises and sort of delights along the way.
Well, thank you.
That's a good setup.
All right, so let me pass these out here.
Am I right?
There are some kinds of green tea that have toasted rice in them.
Yes.
This is not one of those.
That's not that.
So the Genmai Cha has toasted rice, but it's with green tea.
So this is you can even see here.
It's like stems and leaves roasted and it's just a whole new character to it.
So let's taste it.
Should I smell it first?
Yeah, give it a good smell.
That is, yes, there's a lot going on here.
It's like it's often so.
It's lower in caffeine and it's often enjoyed like later in the evening or something like that.
It's so warm and comforting.
I really love it as like a fall tea.
Yeah, and it's got a little bit like, maybe it's just because I'm looking at the...
The tea on the table here, and it looks like twigs, but it feels like woody.
There's definitely woody, yeah.
Yeah, the little roasty, earthy.
The greenness kind of comes through behind the roastiness a little bit.
It's not just green tea.
And I've had genmaicha, and I really like it, but this is different.
It's a little simpler in some ways, but a little more complex in others.
I know that sounds really like pseudo deep, but you know what I'm saying?
No, I think it's deep, deep and it's amazing.
Like steeped for an ice cream base is like incredible.
It's really, really works well, like panna cotta or something like that.
So I knew you'd get excited about that.
I accept that this tea represents me.
Okay, That's a win.
Especially Lisa's like simple and complicated at the same time.
I do sort of love a highbrow, lowbrow.
Yeah, that is true.
Situation.
That is true.
Okay, so the other part of the tea is like while we're sipping this, you got to spill some tea.
So what is the hot gossip going on right now for Dan Pashman?
Oh, man, the hot gas.
I need something more specific.
So what's happening for you?
We're going to dig a lot deeper into this, but you've done this incredible project where you created a whole new pasta shape.
Is there something that isn't announced right now, that's coming up, that we're getting maybe a little scoop on?
This is in keeping with our tea.
This is very, very preliminary.
No idea if this will ever happen.
But my pasta shape, Cascatelli, so far it's only in America.
I put in a lot of effort trying to get it sold in Europe. didn't really ever go anywhere.
From like regulations or like a cultural pushback?
Yeah, no, not regulations.
More, just like Italian companies are kind of like no American could ever have a good idea about pasta.
Sure, sure.
And there's also, just like you know, The funny thing about pasta that I've learned is that, like as much as there's like billions of dollars and euros worth of sales, it's like nobody really cares about trying to do anything new, because they're already doing well with what they've got.
There's not much of an incentive.
Like if pasta sales started plummeting around the world, then maybe they'd be like we need something new.
Right, right, right.
But it's a no, no situation is not going to happen.
I'm now in the very early stages of trying to get Cascatelli in Japan.
Wow.
Being big in Japan is obviously like the goal for everybody, right?
It is.
An old friend of mine who's Japanese-American, she was like, forget Europe.
You should be trying to get this in Japan, like where maybe there's, you know, there's not as much of, I mean, of course there is centuries and millennia of tradition, but there's also a part of the culture that is excited about new things that maybe you don't find so much in Europe.
And she felt like Japan would be perfect for Cascatelli.
I love that.
I love that.
So, all right.
That's really hot goss, and I would be pumped for you to have that happen.
Yeah.
Let's back up a little bit and for those who don't know what Cascatelli is, don't really know your story here, can you just give us the high-level version of it, of what took place?
So I set out to invent a new shape of pasta because I wanted to tell a big, epic story on my podcast and I thought that that would be good.
Like things would go wrong.
It would be dramatic.
Uh, and you know, it would be for a good story on the podcast, even if it failed.
And the podcast is the sport full, right?
Long running, incredible.
You go super deep on stuff.
Thank you.
Yes.
And so, like you know, around the time of the podcast boom and all these sort of long form podcasts were coming out, I was like, what would my version of that be?
Like, how could I tell a long form story? with the sort of cliffhangers and multiple episodes.
And I was like, what if I invented a food?
And I settled on pasta because I have a lot of opinions about pasta shapes and also because I wanted it to be something that would be shelf-stable, relatively inexpensive, so I could ship it to listeners all over the country.
So I didn't want it to only be like in one boutique-y store in Brooklyn.
I wanted my listeners everywhere to be able to order it.
And I also just felt like there's a lot of mediocre pasta shapes out there.
Well, I want to dig into that, but yes.
Okay.
So we will dig into that.
But anyway, spaghetti is not so great.
A lot of them don't do so great.
They're just very old and people stuck with them.
So I set out to invent a new shape of pasta.
I ate every obscure shape.
I can get my teeth on.
I isolated variables.
Do I like long or short ruffles or ridges?
I really like really focusing on ruffles, because I think I decided that they're phenomenal for holding sauce.
They create a very special, unique texture.
And yet very few pasta shapes have them.
What are the classic ones that have ruffles?
Mafalda or Mafaldina was the one that really inspired me.
That's like fettuccine, but with ruffles down the side, down the edges.
Lasagna has it.
So like, you know, Mafalda is like a narrow lasagna.
Crestedigallo, which is like an elbow macaroni with a single spine ruffle around the top.
It looks almost like a, I think like a stegosaurus.
Yeah, or... Cresci di Gallo means like rooster's comb.
Reginetti, which is sort of like Mafalda chopped up into small pieces.
Okay, yeah, I've seen it.
Or Sania Pezzi, which Rustichella di Bruzzo makes only with the first rain of the year.
And that's like, it's like a slang term for broken lasagna.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
That's a great... That sounds amazing.
Get Sania Pezzi when Rustichella releases it.
It's phenomenal okay wow, that's a good tip anyway, whatever we can get inside yeah yeah, okay.
So you wanted it to have ruffles, so I spent three years on it.
A lot of things went wrong and I launched Cascatelli, specially designed to hold a lot of sauce and have these interesting textures and stay on your fork more easily.
And it went very well And it was named one of Time Magazine's Best Inventions of the Year, and now it's in stores.
That's incredible.
Time Magazine's one of the best inventions of the year.
And I still get introduced.
It came out in 2021.
Here we are four and a half or so years later.
Yeah.
I still get introduced at every party and barbecue as like, this is my friend Dan.
He invented a new shape of pasta.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a good icebreaker.
It is a great.
I mean, it's an incredible story and everyone needs to listen to the it's five parts.
I think right.
Five part series.
The original series is five parts.
It's called Mission Impostable.
So if you search that up in your podcast player, it's still there.
There are a few sequels we did with updates, but that's the original series.
Yeah.
And it's incredible.
There's ups and downs.
It's like anytime you're trying to like start something new.
So if you like it from a business perspective.
But I love that you were just like singularly focused on this.
And I see it everywhere now, like all over the place with the little Sporkful logo on it.
And then you also, you brought back two shapes.
One of them I'm obsessed with that were sort of forgotten to time, right?
Yeah, so when Cascatelli came out actually Cascatelli means waterfalls in Italian, because if you hold it vertical, the ruffles kind of look like flowing water, because everyone always asks that.
Yeah, and so when that came out and it was very successful everyone was like are you going to invent another shape of pasta?
You should invent another shape of pasta.
And because I knew how incredibly hard it was the first time and also just how lucky I got that the shape worked as well as it did, I was like there's just no way that I could do this a second time and have it go as well.
It would definitely be a disappointment.
No sophomore effort, no sophomore album.
No, no, like hit it out of the park once, like go out on top.
But I had the idea to team up with Sfolini, who are the artisanal company in upstate New York that makes the original Cascatelli.
What if we were to find two super obscure shapes that I came across in my Cascatelli research and be like one of the very few or only folks selling it in America?
Yeah.
So one of the shapes we did is called Vesuvio, like Mount Vesuvius.
It's also sometimes called Nodini or Trotelay, like knots.
But Vesuvio is like Vesuvius.
I think that's a more fun name.
Yeah.
It also kind of looks like a poop emoji.
Although we decided- You didn't go with that.
We didn't name it after the Italian for that.
Although I did look it up.
It's emoji de caca.
It always sounds better in Italian.
That may not.
That one may not.
That one translates too easily.
And the other one, it's a shape called, in Italy they call it cinquebuchi, which means five tubes.
If you imagine the cross section is like, picture it's a square.
The cross section is a square, but all four corners of the squares are tiny tubes.
Yes.
So they call it five holes because it has the four tiny tubes plus the center.
But to me, it looks like four when you look at it.
Plus, if you saw how chinkwebuki is spelled, you'd be like this is not a good name for a product in America.
It's only made during carnival and only in Sicily.
So even most Italians have never seen this shape.
They've never heard of it.
You really can't find it in stores.
So we took it.
I added ridges to the outside for more sauce-ability.
And we renamed it Quattrotini because it looks like four to me, as I said, not five.
This is the one that I really, really like.
Like Cascatelli, I do enjoy.
But the quadratini I really love because it's like you're getting noodle shape, which I love.
So there's like the spots there for sauce to grab.
But it's just so structural.
And so as you're chewing it, it's just, I don't know, it's a mouthful in a really, really good way.
That's my fave.
Thank you.
I love it, too.
I've had to stop serving it in my house, though.
Oh, why's that?
Well, one of the funny issues with Quattrotini is because every shape, every piece has so much pasta in it.
Like, there's a lot of walls in there.
Yeah, totally.
So every piece is really like... three or four pieces of pasta fused together.
So in a one pound box, there are fewer pieces.
And you shouldn't eat as many pieces as you would if it was like elbow macaroni, because each piece is so much.
But when I serve it to my kids, everyone feels like they're shortchanged.
They're like, but I only got eight pieces of pasta.
And then they want more.
I'm like, the four of us just ate a pound of pasta.
That's more than enough for a family.
Yeah.
But somehow they always feel like they got shortchanged.
I find it hard to believe though, in your house, that people are getting shortchanged on pasta at all.
No, they're not.
But my kids, it's never enough for them.
It's like a pasta house.
Yeah.
But Quattro Schini is, it's probably the most sauceable shape of the three.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would agree with that.
I think it's lovely.
And I, I go by, um, I just eat as much as I need.
I don't limit it just on, you know what I mean?
Right.
Intuitive eating.
I'll tell you a funny quick aside, which you two as food nerds will probably appreciate.
So when I was trying to find other shapes to do, I started looking through a pasta dye catalog.
The dye is like the mold for the pasta shape.
And so these industrial dye makers, they have these catalogs and it's like pages and pages of like ZD products.
And pen A, there's 42 different kinds of ZD or something like that.
How thick do you want the walls?
How much should the diameter be?
Do you want ridges or smooth?
And it's like 0.2 millimeters or 0.22 millimeters or 0.24 millimeters.
They're like these beautiful blueprints.
Right.
And you can custom, you know, and then with the rigatoni, all the same options.
Yeah.
But the Cinque Buki, which I call Quattrotini, there was only one.
It was buried on page 104 of the book was this one sitting there in the corner.
I'm like, what's this?
And even the people who made the die didn't know what it was called.
We had to do this deep dive to find it.
Wow, wow, wow.
That's so fun.
It's like archaeology getting into it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So-
I love talking to you about food.
What's really interesting to me and we can talk forever about it is that I think we disagree on a lot of things, but both have really good backup for it.
We've stayed friends, nonetheless.
And we've stayed friends, nonetheless.
Dan and Dan.
And so one of them is actually pasta shapes.
Obviously, we're very connected on that topic.
And you said something and I know this was a long time ago.
I would just never let it go and I think you also will also stand by.
It is that you think spaghetti is a bad pasta shape.
Have you heard that, Lisa, that he said that?
Yes, and I think those are fighting words.
I'm Italian on both sides.
So you and I did an event in Boston a while ago and what I was trying to convince you of because you talk about how you have different measures for it
You have sauce ability, fork ability, and I think... Tooth sink ability.
Tooth sink ability.
And I actually think, in terms of tooth sink ability, your Cascatelli has it, because it's right angles and all this great stuff and ruffles on there.
But spaghetti, I think...
I don't know if this is true, but I think you're thinking of spaghetti as like an individual noodle.
But the way you actually eat it is twirling five strands onto a fork and then biting into it.
And I think it probably has far more tooth sink ability than even Cascatelli does when you're eating it that way.
So if you take like 10 strands and have them...
Yeah, that's how you experience spaghetti.
Well, right.
I've eaten spaghetti.
I understand how it's done.
So you've had it.
You've had it at work.
I should have started with that.
You know, when I set out to find all the obscure shapes, that's where I started.
I hear what you're saying, but even just among long shapes that you twirl around the fork, don't you feel like fettuccine, for instance, is more tooth sinkable that you can sink your teeth into it more than spaghetti?
I don't know.
I don't know about that.
I would say they both twirl really nicely.
I like spaghetti more than linguine.
You said fettuccine or linguine?
I said fettuccine.
Linguine I don't love either.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know why.
Linguine just isn't that. good in some weird way?
We can talk about that too.
It's only good for like linguine and white clam sauce, and then very oily, because the cross section of linguine is an oval shape, as you probably know.
It's not flat.
Everyone thinks it's flat like fettuccine, but it's narrower, but it's an oval shape, so it's the perfect shape for pursing your lips and sucking an oily coated.
But other than that, I'm pointless.
That is a really good point.
Yeah, it is probably the best for that.
It's the one shape you can create like a perfect seal.
Have you tested that?
Or it's just anecdotally.
No, I've tested it.
You've sat there.
It's very perilous to eat.
If you eat linguine spaghetti style twirled around the fork, that's the sort of safer way to eat it.
If you put one strand in your mouth and slurp it in like a noodle, especially with such an oily sauce, it's going to fishtail everywhere.
It's going to destroy everything.
So you've got to really go in with a hazmat suit.
Yeah, like a lobster bib and just like do it.
You got to eat that one alone, not in front of people you want to impress.
There's no way to do it gracefully.
Yeah, that's a fair point.
That's a good point.
So I guess my point is that like spaghetti, I love all pasta.
I'm sure that you could cook me a phenomenal spaghetti dish and I would love it and I would eat every bite of it.
I just think that, as compared to other shapes, I don't think there's anything that spaghetti is the best at.
Considering that it's the number one shape and it's the first shape that was industrialized and mass produced.
It's the number one selling shape today.
Why?
It's the oldest, but really that's an indication of how primitive it is.
It's a very primitive, simple shape.
And sure I love the classics, but I just think like I think fettuccine is more tooth, sinkable and stays on the fork better because it's flat, it doesn't roll off.
Yeah, I agree with getting it on the fork.
My beef with spaghetti.
My beef with what you don't like about spaghetti is the sauce ability.
And I think that comes down to draining the pasta.
I see a lot of pasta water being thrown around and people taking it right out of the pot and putting it in the sauce.
I think of spaghetti like think of the salad spinner.
You know you want your lettuce dry so the dressing adheres, it doesn't wash off and sit in the bottom of the bowl and you've got this sort of watery experience as you eat the lettuce.
Pasta is the same way.
I say drain it really, shake it out.
Well, let the steam evaporate, then sauce it.
That sauce is going to cling.
Also, maybe your sauce is too thin.
So, like that combination too much water, too thin sauce you're going to get a beautiful sauceable dish.
Spaghetti, if you drink.
I have two thoughts on that.
One is that adding pasta water, you want the starch, not necessarily the water part of it.
And usually you add it and you're continuing to cook, to drive off that water and then sort of marry them together.
So I would agree.
If you're just going to slop it in and sort of do nothing, you slop it in.
Lisa, you're talking about when you drain the pasta, but a lot of people don't drain it enough.
So the pasta is still wet.
And then they put it back in the sauce.
And yes, you're kind of cooking it off.
But if you don't cook it off enough, it makes the pasta slick.
Yes.
But I think, and depending on the sauce you're putting it into, maybe you want to drain it a little bit more.
But here's the thing about that sort of sauce pickup for me.
I think it follows the capillary effect.
When you have all of that spaghetti, It's the sauce that gets sort of trapped between them as you're twirling your fork.
So I think you can actually get quite a bit of sauce.
Obviously not a big chunky sauce.
But, you know, even with a casket tail, you have to stab the other things along the way there too.
But they're going to hold all the sauce for you.
I mean, like, look, I could make up fancy terms like capillary effect too, Dan.
Yeah.
We're going to put a definition on the screen so that everyone sees that we got it from Wikipedia.
I just feel like – look, the things you're both saying are not wrong.
I just feel like the things you're saying are true about every other pasta shape and – more true.
So like, yes, the spaghetti holds some sauce.
Yes.
It holds some sauce between that.
Like it's not, it's not sauceless, but like, It's not great at holding sauce.
There's a lot of other shapes that are better at holding sauce.
It's also, it's hard to get a great bite on your fork.
Even with twirling, even with the spoon assist, it's still not ideal.
Like you tilt the fork the wrong way, it's gonna slide right off.
It's hard to avoid having danglers, which then are very perilous as you eat.
And so again, I love all pasta.
I'm just saying as compared to other shapes.
Yeah.
I don't think you can tell me one thing that spaghetti does better than any other shape besides, maybe scratch and nostalgia itch.
Which is huge.
I mean, I think that's huge.
Yeah.
All right.
So we're going to continue to disagree.
Agree to disagree.
Agree to disagree on this one.
I say Lady and the Tramp moment with Cascatelli wouldn't work.
That's true.
It wouldn't.
But I also feel like that scene did great damage to pasta history by romanticizing a mediocre shape.
Ooh, okay.
Yeah, have two dogs ever eaten Cascatelli?
That's the good question right there.
Not at the same time.
You're right.
I'm sure they've eaten.
Wow, that's interesting.
How many dogs have stolen bowls of Cascatelli?
Coming up after the break, we talk pasta sauces and I do their Roar Snack Test.
Get it?
Stick around.
Hope you're hungry because it's time for some ads.
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I'm Dan Pashman.
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Okay, back now to my conversation with Dan Souza and Lisa McManus on their podcast In the Test Kitchen.
So pasta is amazing, but the sauce that goes on it is also super important.
And in your latest book Anything's Possible, which I'm not a huge pun guy, but I actually really like the title of that book.
It's great.
Thank you. you are super, super playful with sauces on your pasta.
And I'm curious, what are a couple from that book that really, like, stand out to you?
And why did you go that way?
I mean, the basic idea of the book is, you know, so Cascatelli came out.
Everyone was sending me pictures of what they were making with it, which was very exciting.
But it...
Like 75% of what I got was like tomato sauce, meat sauce, and mac and cheese.
And then like 20% was maybe pesto.
And that left 5% of things that I was like, oh, that's clever.
And it just really struck me how limited most people's sauce selections are.
And I also felt like as much as I love all the Italian classics, like what else could be out there?
So I really set out to do a cookbook that was like non-traditional.
There's no recipe for tomato sauce in this book.
There's no recipe for classic lasagna or meat sauce or cacio e pepe.
But there's cacio e pepe with chili crisp.
There's like, instead of sort of a traditional Italian, like artichokes and lemon, that they would do with lemon juice, we do it with preserved lemon.
Yeah, that's great.
Those kinds of things.
We do have a shakshuka and shells.
What are some of my other favorites?
There's a kimchi carbonara that's phenomenal.
So we're just sort of like bringing together ingredients from different cuisines all over the world.
There's a mac and doll that I know you like, Dan.
Yes, another one.
So I just felt like let's broaden pasta.
I think that you know, for a food that is so beloved and that we eat so much of, it's a shame that the things we're putting on top of it are so narrow.
Yeah.
It's funny for me, like I... can be a purist about things.
Like I find something that I really love, like this is how a lobster roll should be or whatever.
I actually found it really freeing when I got your book.
I was like, I don't know.
But then I started doing it and I think I've been more playful with pasta sort of since then.
Oh, good.
I'm glad.
You were excited about a specific one in the book.
Which one was that?
I really loved the idea of the chili crisp ones, because that is something that I'm trying to get more use out of.
And to put it on pasta hadn't occurred to me.
It was like, oh, okay.
Yeah, and it's one of those things, like, I feel like this happens so often in food.
People hear about a combination, and your initial reaction is like, huh?
But then when you kind of like unpack the combination, you're like well, that actually makes like.
So it makes like people put chili crisp on vanilla soft serve.
So the idea of chili crisp with dairy is already out there.
So to put chili crisp into cacio e pepe... isn't so crazy at all to me.
You know, like once you sort of break it down that way.
And I think that there's so many other combinations like that.
I think you had, you mentioned there was one that was your favorite in the book.
What was that?
I don't know that I can pick just one favorite.
I do have a list.
What about one of your kids?
Can you pick one of your kids?
Yeah.
Since the book came out, the ones that I probably have cooked the most the spaghetti alla sassina, assassin spaghetti, which is one of the few Italian dishes that's in there, but it's pretty obscure.
I went to Bari and Puglia to learn about how it's made because that's where it's from.
The one dish that I really kind of invented in there is pasta pizza, which is you take fettuccine or you can do any long shape.
I think it works best with fettuccine.
You cook it.
You mix it with raw beaten eggs and you put it on a sheet pan and you bake it.
And then you top it like a pizza and then bake it again.
And it gets like crispy golden brown on the bottom and the pasta all fuses together and you can eat it like pizza.
It's almost like the crispy edges of a lasagna turned into a whole thing kind of.
Yeah, yeah.
So my kids love that one.
I just recently made them the pasta frittata. which is another sort of lesser known Italian thing.
It's got a lot of nutmeg in it.
And that's like a great, that's a great sort of brunch one.
You know, you can make it in advance and serve it room temperature.
So I made that recently and it was such a hit that I had to make it again like two weeks later.
That's awesome.
I actually developed a recipe here at America's Test Kitchen for the pasta frittata and it was amazing.
It's such a good use of leftover pasta.
You get crispy bottom and rich egginess, and I love that you can just cut a wedge and enjoy it.
For sure.
It's actually a common beach snack in Italy.
Oh, is that right?
Because it's again something they'll make the next morning with the leftovers from the previous night's dinner and slice up a few wedges, wrap them in wax paper or whatever and eat it on the beach for lunch.
I love that.
That sounds great.
Yeah.
One of our top recipes for the last, like I don't know, probably six months, is our spaghetti alla sassina.
Really?
Yeah, I think there's like, it's having a moment.
And we talk about it as like the pasta that breaks basically every rule of pasta making.
But you were there in Bari and checking it out.
Can you talk a little bit about that pasta?
Yeah, so I heard about it as I was sort of doing research for the cookbook.
I was looking for things that were, different, that most Americans didn't know about.
So I heard about this.
I'm a huge texture eater.
I love crisp and crunch.
Spaghetti alla Sassina basically is just you take spaghetti, you put it into a spicy tomato sauce, you cook it down and cook it down until the sauce basically turns to the consistency of tomato paste.
And then you keep pan frying it until the pasta turns crispy crunchy, golden brown in some parts and even charred black in other parts, until it is, as the Italians would say, crocante crunchy.
So I went to the place in Bari where it was invented.
I went in the kitchen and met the chefs and heard the whole story.
And then I went around to other places in Bari where it's served, until I found my one that I thought was my favorite.
And then I came back to the U.S. and tried to replicate that one.
Yeah, it's such an amazing pasta.
And it's like, yeah, there's like three or four textures in every single bite.
And I love things.
There's a sort of weird sweet spot of like it feels like it breaks all the rules, but it's traditional for like a certain group of people.
It was only just invented in like late 60s.
It's pretty new, yeah.
It's also to me.
One of the things I also like about it is we have this perception of Italian food as being just absolutely etched in stone.
Right.
And you know everybody's.
You ask any Italian or Italian American, they'll say like their grandmother's grandmother's grandmother made it this way.
And it's just not true.
Like maybe Italian food doesn't change as quickly as some other cuisines.
But like carbonara was only invented in like the 1940s.
Yeah.
So Italian food does change.
It does evolve.
And spaghetti alla sassina is a perfect example of that.
It's only recently become widespread around Bari in the last 10 or 20 years.
And now there's new versions.
There's one with stracciatella on top.
They do one with broccoli rabe during broccoli rabe season.
Oh, yeah.
I've seen that.
So I put a recipe for that one in my cookbook too.
And there's more and more places opening up.
Now there's like – like places that just do assassina in Bari.
I'm going back.
So I've been doing these pasta tours since my book came out every fall with Culinary Backstreets.
So I'm going back this fall, 2025.
We're just about to announce a tour for 2026.
And we go- This is you on location-
On location, going around Italy eating pasta, and we go to Bari and we eat spaghetti alla Sassina in multiple places.
It's funny.
The invite must have gone to my spam folder.
I didn't get it either.
I haven't gotten it yet.
That's cool.
You should come.
We should just go to Italy and just eat.
I agree.
Okay, so I think we've talked about pasta a lot.
Yeah.
But you have opinions on foods outside of pasta, it turns out.
That's true.
And I think you sort of in my mind, like when you came on my radar in the early days, were doing a lot around like how people actually eat foods, which I find really fascinating.
Um, could you give us a couple of your hot takes on on on how people are maybe eating things the wrong way?
Yeah.
I mean, this was sort of like my whole focus for the first few years of my podcast in the early 2010s.
Um, yeah.
Uh, I mean, like, you know them well, but like, uh, cheese on the bottom on a cheeseburger.
Cheeseburger with cheese on the bottom.
You put the cheese on the bottom.
It brings the cheese closer to your tongue.
It accentuates cheesy goodness.
It also creates a seal to prevent the juices from turning the bottom bun soggy.
So in that case, does that mean that you prefer the taste of cheese over beef?
Not over it, but if you're talking about a thick burger and you have the cheese on the top, I think you're barely going to register the cheese.
It's mostly like a barely textural thing as you're chewing.
You put it on the bottom, you just kind of notice it a little bit more.
What do you think of that one, Lisa?
I love that.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Where is your cheese normally on your burger?
I don't put it on because I can't taste it, so I have like another million calories.
Oh, you just do hamburgers.
Yeah, I just say keep the cheese, you know, give me the burger.
Maybe now you're going to start this.
Yeah, I'm going to try that.
All right, good, good.
Maybe I'll like it now.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
All right, what's another one?
I mean, I put a lot of thought into tortilla chip dipping and the best shapes for dipping and the best techniques and how to get as much dip as possible on your chip.
Okay, ground versus triangular chip.
Versus rectangular.
I mean, round overall probably has more structural integrity.
I've actually interviewed a rocket scientist and an engineer on the subject of tortilla chip dipping.
I've gone deep on this one.
So what the rocket scientist taught me is that, if you have a triangular chip that you should – like snowplow across the top of the dip instead of- Don't go too deep.
Don't go straight down, because then when you bend it back you're getting like this sort of forklift thing, and that's when you're putting so much strain on the chip.
That's when you get breakage.
Yeah.
The other thing to think about with a triangular chip is are you holding one point and dipping two points, or are you holding it by a straight edge and dipping one point?
That's also going to determine the stability of the chip.
And this is like guacamole.
Like this is like a serious dip.
But, as I wrote – so the engineer was – when I was interviewing an engineer about this, he was saying something about how, like well, the arch is like the most powerful shape in –.
An engineer, like the Roman aqueducts, are held up by arches.
They still stand today.
And I realized then that the scoop chip, because he was like and a three-dimensional arch, is a dome.
Yep.
I realized that the scoop chip, if you turn it upside down, is a dome.
Is a dome, yeah.
And that thing, if you hold that on your fingertip like a thimble, I believe, Dan, you tested this.
How are you dipping a donut?
When I first came out with this, you tested it with cream cheese.
Yes, we did test it.
What did you find?
So we tested this back in the day here in America's Test Kitchen and we tried it with a bunch of different dips.
It has to be a thick one.
But yeah, using it basically in reverse of what you would normally do and you plow through it, there's almost no way to break that chip.
So we did a story on it.
We posted it all over the place.
And people were just furious about it.
They did not... Even though it was true, they were like, this is ridiculous.
Your eyes are overthinking it.
But you're 100% right.
And it's really, really sturdy.
And it looks completely silly.
Why would anyone... complain that America's Test Kitchen is overthinking something.
I know, that's like what we do.
Yeah, that's what makes you great.
I know, that is exactly what we do.
Why are you following these people on Instagram if you don't like overthinking?
Yeah, no, it's totally true.
But no, I remember the image that we shot for it and it was like the overturned scoop With, like I don't know, an inch and a half of guacamole sitting on top of it.
Yeah.
Like you can go over the top with it.
So if you want all the guac, turn it over, basically.
Yeah, that's right.
Turn the ship over.
Yeah, that's what you do there.
All right, so Dan, I'd like to do a third segment on the show that I would call the Roar Snack Test.
So instead of ink blots.
So you didn't like puns.
Don't steal that.
I don't unless I come up with them and I like them.
So, instead of showing you ink blots and then analyzing you, I'm going to ask you some sort of quirky food questions, which these are like perfectly up your alley, and then we'll understand you a little bit more.
I'm ready.
All right.
So the first one is I'm also obsessed with the way that people physically eat foods, and corn on the cob is one of my favorite foods.
So I'm curious, how do you physically eat the corn on the cob?
I take a knife and I cut the kernels off the cob.
Oh, wow.
So you don't eat it on the cob at all.
I don't.
It gets stuck in my teeth.
It's a giant mess.
And I feel like you leave half the food on the cob.
If you're not good at it, yeah.
Plus, I also love when you slice it straight down from top to bottom, you get these chunks.
Oh, I love that.
And you can pick that up with your hand and it's almost like like eating a potato chip or something.
It's like you get this whole and you pop that in your mouth and you get this very satisfying, very juicy bite of like 20 or 30 kernels in your mouth all at once and it's like a flat slab, so it kind of you can really bite your teeth down on it and kind of spread.
So you get like, it's just like maximum corn crunch and flavor.
I could have predicted that answer actually, because there's a fourth option, right?
There's a lot of different options.
But so the the last time that we were talking on stage I was we were talking about, I think, pistachios or seafood or something like that.
And you were like, the idea of like opening pistachios was like ridiculous to you.
You're like, I want the bag where they're already stripped out.
Yeah.
I'm like tired and annoyed just thinking about opening pistachios.
Yeah.
And I think I was like teasing you about like, I was like, why does food have to be easy?
And your mom was actually at the show in the front row.
And I like looked at her.
I was like, what happened to him when he was a kid?
I don't understand what happened here.
But yes, you want the maximum benefit of it.
So I totally get that.
I just happen to love the process of eating corn on the cob, opening pistachios, cracking crabs and doing all the work there in the same process.
Yeah, I guess you and I are just different in that respect.
I mean, you know, there's... You know... certain foods that involve some amount of construction where you're, you know, like, like a bossam, the Korean dish, you got the pork belly, you know, different components, the pickled radish, whatever it is.
Um, That I love.
You like that, okay.
Because then you can kind of like alter your ratios from one bite to another and the construction of it is fun.
But I don't I still, when you take a bite out of it, it's still like a very large satisfying bite with all these textures and flavors that are all coming together.
Whereas to go through the work of opening up a pistachio, and some of them don't want to open.
Oh, like half of them don't want to open.
Half of them don't want to open.
So they're really stubborn and annoying.
I mean, you open it up, and what do you get for all your effort?
One pistachio.
And you appreciate that pistachio.
You know, after that initial conversation I remembered I wanted to send you.
They make tins of pistachios where none of them will open.
It's like a gag.
And I forgot to send it to you.
Are they real pistachios?
Yeah, they're real pistachios.
Are they like hand selected to not open?
They probably are like, these are the defects because we didn't open them properly.
But you can just like send that as a gift.
That's so funny.
It's like, basically like you said to someone to make them go insane.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not that I wanted to.
I love it.
Um, uh, great.
Okay.
So I want to ask, um, about another piece of produce, uh, bananas.
And I want to know what your preferred banana ripeness is, and then how dedicated you are to that specific ripeness.
So on a spectrum from like, Let's say, like totally green to black, with like clean yellow in the middle, you know.
Right.
Okay, so I don't want any green on it.
No green on it, okay.
I'd say so.
If totally green is zero and black is 10 and clean yellow is five, my ideal banana would be a 73.
Okay.
Ooh, okay.
I think we might be aligned on this.
Oh, no.
That's like a lightly speckled sort of guy, right?
Yeah, a little bit of speckled.
You want it to be a little soft and a little sweet.
Yeah, yeah.
But my ideal banana would not be mushy.
Agreed, agreed.
Yeah, that's my sweet spot there.
As they ripen, you get more and more fructose.
You get that nice sweetness.
You lose the sourness and some of that chalky texture.
I can't do below five.
I'm not going to happen for that.
I'm sitting here thinking three, three and a half is good for me.
Do you still want some green?
At the very moment when it stops being green, but before it's fully fully, fully ripe.
I like it more green.
Like lightly sweet, without that kind of maybe a little bit too much gloppy sweetness that it gets when it's really brown.
So like I'm always trying to catch it right before it is fully like starting to get into that speckled zone,
Yeah.
I think what you need is like a household that just has – that runs the gamut so that, like people are picking them at the right times.
Yeah.
That's like the solution to it.
Well, there are some stores that like sort avocados that way, right?
Yes, yes.
I wish.
You have to go squeeze them all.
No, you should never squeeze your avocados.
Why?
That's my big –
That's my platform.
My entire platform.
Oh yeah.
I've been like, you got to give a light, a light pinch, a little press to know how to feel them.
And like, because here's the thing.
So if you're, if you're not planning ahead, we have a huge problem here.
But Every time you open an avocado and it looks like it's going to be great and then you have these little brown spots, that is because other avocado lovers have come by and given them that gentle squeeze or that little poke, and then put it back because it wasn't quite what they wanted.
And then you buy it and then you get screwed.
The way to buy avocados is one step before they are ripe.
You could squeeze them and they're hard and it's not going to matter.
So they're like not quite purple black at that point.
And if we all did that, there would be no issues with avocados.
Interesting.
I think I've ruined a lot of people's lives.
I'm sorry for you to realize that right now, Lisa.
You might need some time to process, which I understand.
I feel bad.
I mean, that's a good platform, Dan.
Yeah.
But I just think that it's going to require a lot of avocado education.
Yeah.
I did a YouTube video on it, and I'll keep going.
I won't rest.
Okay.
So my last raw snack question for you is I'm going to ask you to complete a sentence.
And the sentence is, when life hands you lemons.
I would say when life hands you lemons, preserve them.
That's a good one.
Why do you say that?
I just love preserved lemon.
I always have a jar of whole preserved lemons somewhere in my house.
I also love a New York Shook preserved lemon paste.
Oh, yeah.
Which is really nice.
It's like just pureed up for you?
It's pureed.
So it's great, you know – sometimes preserved lemon can be very strong.
Um, you can take like a little spoonful of the paste and add it into some other sauce.
If you're making something, you just feel like this just needs a little bit.
It needs a little more tart, a little more funk or something.
Um, I'll do like grilled chicken.
New York shook makes this shawarma barbecue sauce that I love.
So I'll do the shawarma barbecue sauce on chicken thighs with some salt.
And then I'll add in a little of the preserved lemon paste into the mix too.
So it's just like a little bit like a lemony shawarma.
That sounds really good.
Out of this world.
Yeah, out of this world.
I love preserved lemons too.
My mom makes them pretty much every year with Meyer lemons.
And so they're a little softer in texture, but also in flavor.
They're not like quite as punchy in the face.
And I've done a puree of that too.
That's a great answer.
Have you ever heard of this dessert in i guess it's somewhere near like sorrento uh, in italy called delizia alimone?
That would also be a good thing to do with lemons.
Yeah it's uh, i had it once at this, at this um gelateria and it's like just stuck with me forever.
I found it once in america but it wasn't nearly as good.
It's like you gotta look.
It's sort of like a, a light cake with like a lemon glaze and then also some other stuff poured on top to sort of like soak into the cake a little.
But it's from like the part of Italy that's especially known for lemons.
Yep.
And those Italian lemons are incredible.
Wow.
Dan, this has been so fun, so informative.
I'm glad we're.
I feel like we had just had like an ongoing conversation that we will now pick up the next time we get together.
But always such spirited discussion, and I love the way your mind works about food.
Where can folks find you next?
Where's Dan off to next, and what's he working on?
Sporkful Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.
You can follow me on Instagram.
If you go to sporkful.com, there's links there for where to buy my pasta.
Yep.
And yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Right back at you, Dan.
I look forward to continuing the conversation.
Yeah, and yeah, thanks so much, Lisa.
That's great.
And make sure that you check out Dan's pasta Cascatelli, or my favorite Quattrotini, and the other one is Vesuvio.
Yeah.
Okay, look for those pastas.
You can get all the recipes that we talked about the ATK ones on the America's Test Kitchen app or americastestkitchencom.
Thanks, Lisa, as well.
And we'll see you next time.
That was In the Test Kitchen, a new podcast from our friends at America's Test Kitchen.
You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, including on YouTube.
They got a bunch of great episodes in their feed, including a conversation with the barbecue expert Meathead not to be confused with singer Meatloaf and another with Marina Mabry, a WNBA player for the Connecticut Sun.
So go check all those out.
And while you're here, check out more of our Reheats.
They're episodes from our archive that we replay for you every Friday.
These are some of our very favorite shows from the Sporkful's past.
They're in our deep freezer.
They're not publicly available.
So we bring them out and share them.
Last week, our episode was with Phil Rosenthal from Somebody Feed Phil.
We had another classic recently with Nadia Hussein from Great British Bake Off.
These are really fun to revisit.
Or if you just started listening to our show, it'll be the first time for you, so check them all out every Friday.
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Does your podcasting app have that?
And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more.
It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.
And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXMcom slash Sporkful.
This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern and senior producer Andres O'Hara.
It was edited by Camille Stanley.
Our engineer is Jared O'Connell.
Our interns are Morgan Johnson and Jasmine Sutherland.
Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcast.
Our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
Until next time, I'm Dan Hashman.
