This Wednesday 25th October, it’s World Pasta Day!

Whether you’re in the mood for lasagne, bolognese, mac and cheese, or something more daring, it’s the perfect opportunity tuck into your favourite pasta dish – and learn some fun facts while you’re at it!

World Pasta Day Celebration

World Pasta Day has been celebrated since 1995, when 40 pasta producers from around the globe got together and held the world’s first ever Pasta Congress.

Pasta Origins

Obviously it’s Italy, right? The popularly held opinion is…maybe not. Rumour has it that pasta descends from noodles in China – which the Italian explorer Marco Polo introduced when he returned from a journey there in the 12th century. It’s hard to know for sure though – as there’s also historical records which indicate that Romans could have been making their own pasta from as early as 500 B.C!

What’s What

Ever wondered about what the deal was with coloured pasta? Let us fill you in! Generally, green pasta is coloured with spinach, red with tomato, orange with carrots, and black with squid ink. Round pasta, meanwhile, is best-suited for tomato-based sauces which cling to their shape – while flat pasta is designed for creamy sauces.

Pasta Names

Pasta comes in over 600 shapes if you can believe it – and the Italian words for them are aptly named. Here are a few translations of some of the most popular pasta shapes…

Capellini: fine hairs
Conchiglie: shells
Fettucine: little ribbons
Linguine: little tongues
Rotelle: little wheels
Spaghetti: little strings
Vermicelli: little worms

More Fun Facts…

• The International Pasta Organisation claims that if Italians ate their average yearly amount of pasta in the form of spaghetti, they would eat approximately 600 million kilometres of the stuff. That would be enough spaghetti to wrap around the planet 15,000 times!
• The three most popular shapes of pasta are spaghetti, macaroni, and penne.
• Cooked al dente quite literally means “to the tooth,” which is how to test pasta to see if it’s been properly cooked. Al dente pasta will also keep you feeling full for longer!
• Pasta contains six of the eight amino acids required by our body to make a healthy diet. Who knew?!

We’ve got plenty of yummy pasta dishes on the Mecca Bingo menu – come on in and try them for yourself! Don’t forget to take a spin on our action-packed slots too!