1-Ingredient Upgrades to Elevate Your Jarred Marinara

Andy Lyons

Dan Pashman doesn’t define himself as a chef or a cook. He’s not a “foodie.” He’s an eater, as are those who tune into his James Beard Award-winning podcast The Sporkful. (Or at least that’s what the slogan says: “It’s not for foodies, it’s for eaters.”)

But just because Pashman doesn’t spend every day in a restaurant, Test Kitchen, or teaching classes at a culinary school doesn’t mean that his days don’t focus a lot on food. When you listen to any episode from his 14-year-strong podcast archive, you’ll quickly realize he is infectiously passionate about the stories behind what we eat, connections forged through food, and the big and small ways we can optimize each eating occasion.

For this reason, the multi-hyphenate, multimedia journalist went on a three-year quest to invent a brand-new pasta shape and bring it to market. In spring 2021, Pashman chronicled the long and winding journey he took to make it possible to produce and sell cascatelli (Italian for “waterfall”) on the Sporkful podcast series “Mission: ImPASTAble.” By the time boxes of the short, ruffle-lined, and curved noodle became available, they quickly sold out—and was selected as one of TIME Magazine’s top 100 inventions of 2021.

Sfoglini

Once fans had cascatelli in their kitchens, they quickly put it to good use and started tagging Pashman in photos of their noodle and sauce combinations. That's when he realized that there was a lot of potential in expanding our collective horizons about what we think should be in a pasta sauce… and what old-school noodle “rules” are meant to be broken.

So Pashman called in reinforcements: a team of recipe developers, recipe testers, food stylists, culinary historians, and someone he calls his “pasta fairy