Hand Made Spaghetti alla Chitarra

‘Chitarra’ means, yes you’ve guessed it, guitar! The reason for this is the piece of equipment used to make this pasta resembles guitar strings. The chitarra is a rectangular wooden frame with parallel wires running across it from top to bottom. The rolled out pasta dough is placed on the chitarra and pushed through the wires using a rolling pin. Pasta makers in Abruzzo release the pasta strands from the wires by ‘playing’ them as they would a stringed instrument!

The resulting pasta looks like square spaghetti and has a porous texture. There is a similar type of pasta made in Lazio called tonnarelli.