This pasta shape is one of the smaller ones of the bavette family, also called bavettine or tagliatelline. The larger sizes include trenettte liguri and fettucce romane.
There is very little information about this shape in the form of a small tongue (tongue means lingua in Italian), and in particular when it joined the world of pasta. It is not mentioned in the main dictionaries and culinary works until the 19th century when the Tuscan writer Pietro Fanfani proposed a definition of baverine, which “are also called bavette”: “a type of pasta in long and thin rows” (Vocabolario dell’Uso Toscano (Tuscan Dictionary), 1863).
In any case, linguine has established itself as one of the essential shapes in the world of pasta and is produced in almost all pasta factories in Italy.
Ideal with
Linguine are traditionally paired with delicate herbal sauces such as the famous Genoese pesto or with seafood sauces. They also go well with a light bechamel sauce flavoured with lemon, saffron and ginger.
