My friends over at Pastificio dei Campi have recently launched a new type of pasta called the campotto (plural, campotti). The name comes from “Campi” combined with otto, the word for 8 in Italian. In fact, when they are dry, they look like little 8s. When I saw them for the first time (Giuseppe di Martino posted photos on his Twitter account), I immediately wanted to rename them campotti cicciotti (chubby little campotti) due to their plumpness and rotund shape.

I got my hands on a box of the new releases and then, due to a combination of prior food engagements and poor time management skills, weeks had gone by and I had not yet cooked them. Shame! So I did what any Parla would do, I took them on vacation with me! They joined Papa Parla and I on a 3000km road trip around Italy. Our plan was to spring them on the first worthy kitchen. Since most of our destinations were land locked, and I really saw the campotti with a fish sauce of some sort, we waited until we hit the Adriatic Coast and sprung them on Vecchia Marina in Roseto Degli Abruzzi. We had them prepared with langoustine tails and sole filets in a light tomato sauce.

When cooked, the campotti became roly-poly and scooped up their condiment as their cousins, calamarata, paccheri, and lumache also do. The pasta itself, while pliable, held its shape and clutched the fish in its voluptuous curves. The pasta’s surface was sheathed in the sauce, a function of the high quality wheat and bonze die used in its production.

Other condiments I would have like to have tried are fagioli e cozze (beans and mussels, maybe with some raisons and pine nuts thrown in), broccoli e vongole (broccoli and clams), ragu’ di pesce spada (sword fish ragu). How would you like your campotti???

A very special thanks to Papa Parla for his food styling and hand modeling assistence!