Five Regions, Five Pastas: A National Pasta Day Tour of Italy

Ask for pasta in Italy and the answer depends on where you’re sitting. In the Alps it’s buckwheat and melted cheese, in Sicily fried eggplant and salty ricotta, and between them every region has its own tradition. For National Pasta Day on October 17, here’s a five-stop tour: five regions, five classics, one fork.

Pizzoccheri alla Valtellinese comes from Valtellina, in Lombardy, and went viral at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, where athletes lined up for it in Bormio and Livigno. Short buckwheat ribbons cook in the same pot as potatoes and savoy cabbage, then get layered with cheese and finished with garlic butter cooked until hazelnut brown.

Pro tip: no local cheese? Fontina is the easiest to find in the US, and Gruyère or Asiago work too, with Parmigiano-Reggiano in place of Grana Padano.

Pici with Garlic (Pici all'Aglione) comes from the Val di Chiana in Tuscany, home to Chiana garlic, a Slow Food presidium. Six cloves of crushed garlic dissolve slowly in olive oil with a little chili for about ten minutes, then cluster tomatoes and a spoonful of vinegar cook down into a creamy sauce. Pici are thick, hand-rolled strands of flour and water, and they take about 18 minutes to cook.

Pro tip: keep the heat very low while the garlic cooks. It should dissolve into the oil, not turn brown.

Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe (Orecchiette alle Cime di Rapa) is one of Puglia’s most typical dishes, especially around Bari. The orecchiette are made by hand from just semolina and water, then boiled in the same pot as the broccoli rabe. Anchovies melted in garlic-scented olive oil coat it all, and toasted breadcrumbs go on top.

Pro tip: add the orecchiette once the broccoli rabe has cooked for about five minutes. The pasta takes on the flavor of the greens.

Sardinian Gnocchi with Sausage Ragù uses malloreddus, also called gnocchetti sardi, small ridged shells with a chewy bite. They’re tossed in a ragù of crumbled sausage, tomato purée, and red wine that simmers for about two hours. It’s a dish for Sunday tables, built to be shared.

Pro tip: add a pinch of sugar to the tomato, as the recipe does. It balances the acidity of the sauce.

Pasta alla Norma is a Sicilian classic from Catania. Sedani rigati go into a velvety tomato sauce passed through a food mill, topped with fried eggplant slices, basil, and plenty of grated salted sheep’s milk ricotta. The recipe comes with the advice of the chef at a family trattoria in Catania.

Pro tip: stir a spoonful of the eggplant frying oil into the tomato purée at the end. According to the Catania chef quoted in the recipe, it’s the secret to a sensational Norma sauce.

Look at what’s on each plate and you can read the map: butter and mountain cheese in the Alps, Chiana garlic in Tuscany, bitter greens and anchovies in Puglia, sausage and tomato in Sardinia, eggplant and sheep’s milk ricotta in Sicily. Pasta in Italy is mostly about what the land and sea put within reach, plus a pot of boiling water to bring it together.