Simone Zanoni's ham and butter shells make us all wise

For many, no dish evokes childhood memories quite like pasta with ham and butter. It's the lazy meal parents prepare in the evening after getting home late from work. Often, it's made in a hurry, while washing dishes and running a load of laundry. The pasta is overcooked, the butter isn't melted enough, the ham is poor quality: yet, kids love it. We were the first when we were little. With a generous dollop of Emmental cheese or, sacrilege, ketchup, few things could make us as happy.

The shape of the pasta, the coquillettes, plays a big role. Its small, slightly folded tube seems reserved for children. It's their meal, while adults eat sophisticated dishes later. Even today, when we prepare it, it's on days when we're feeling down, when it's raining, to comfort ourselves and rediscover the carefree spirit of youth.

Not everyone knows, however, that it's almost impossible to find shell pasta in Italy. This shape was invented by the food industry in the 19th century, when France began producing its own durum wheat pasta in large quantities rather than importing it from Italy. In Vermicelles et coquillettes, histoire d'une industrie alimentaire française (Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2023), The historian Pierre-Antoine Dessaux writes: "Whatever astonishment, or even disgust, may be aroused, for