Ever try making a wagon-wheel lasagna?
He says he does in post #17.
Evidently so.
The right pasta shape doesn’t make a huge amount of difference but it does make a difference. The basic goal is that you get an even distribution in each bite without an inordinate amount of effort. There’s no one fixed pasta shape to go with any one sauce, except by tradition, but it does break down into broad categories. At the most basic level, you can break down pasta sauces along two axes, thin vs thick and smooth vs chunky.
Thin sauces like a clam sauce work better with thin or ridged pastas like Angel Hair or Gemelli are good at holding onto sauce, resulting in a much better sauce:pasta distribution per bite. On the other hand, thick sauces like alfredo or ragu would turn angel hair into a big clumpy mass and work better with more substantial noodles like tagliatelle or pappardelle.
Sauces with large chunks like sausage and broccoli rabe aren’t caught very well by long noodles and work much better with scooped shape pastas like orecchiette. On the other hand, smooth sauces like amatriciana or sauces that contain small chunks like puttanesca work far better with long noodles like spaghetti.
At the end of the day, it’s all going to be edible but picking the right shape does help make it more enjoyable. Once you burst past all of the Italian traditionalism and mysticism, it’s largely a matter of common sense.
The last time I made baked ziti I substituted some random on-hand pasta for the ziti. It was a huge dissapointment. (Well, we pretended it was. I made the sauce from scratch and made some mini meatballs as well. Although it was fantastic, we kept up the ruse that it was shit because of the not-ziti pasta)
Although there are many, many pasta shapes in British Supermarkets, I haven’t had Wagon Wheels more than once or twice.
I recalled that in my youth there were chocolate confections called Wagon Wheels I sedulously avoided, not caring for crap. Apparently** they’re still there**. America may count herself blessed in her purity from such stuff. British confectionery is overrated.
I wonder if different areas of Italy made distinctive-shaped pastas to set themselves apart? Or perhaps all the shapes arose out of a need not to be bored with the same thing over and over? Some, being more difficult to assemble, such as lasagna or tortellini or ravioli may have been kept for special occasions, while the more mundane alla ghitarra, fettucini, orrechietti etc were the everyday go-to’s?
I DO agree with the up-threaders that certain dishes MUST have a particular pasta shape. Aglio et olio wouldn’t be the same without linguini. Chicken soup without acini de pepe? Unthinkable!
Mangia bene!!!
Why do we need more than one Beach Boys song? They all sound the same! Why do we need more than one Jackie Chan movie? They all follow the same plot!
It’s for the variety, of course. I agree that we could probably get along with four or five shapes, but more is fun.
Sometimes pasta shapes are designed by physicists to demonstrate new states of matter
Jacques Pepin always says that macaroni-type pasta allows many more servings than the equivalent dry weight of spaghetti-type pasta. He’s absolutely right; its far easier to hoover up 1/2 lb of cooked linguini than to shovel the equivalent tonnage of fusilli down the hatch.
“Wagon wheels” are also called ‘rotelle’. I recall them being in 75% of pasta salads in the recent past. I’ll have to look for some next time I’m at the store.
Howzabout Kasha & Penises?
Also known as “go eat a bowl of dicks” 
On a higher note… how about calling the dish ‘Kasha and Butterflies’?
They’re nummy-nummy and we can just eat them up! 