Am I the only one who can't get ZITI?
This is totally not a big deal, because I seldom use tube-shaped pastas, and if I really needed it, I could just order some. Nevertheless, I think it's really weird, and I am totally curious (a characteristic of mine that's bound to kill me someday)... ziti seems like such a commonly specified pasta in recipes, and I just can't figure out why it's not around here. Similar shapes that are readily available in virtually every market in my area are penne, penne rigate and mostaciolli, and I can get each of them in a variety of diameters and lengths. But for the life of me, I cannot find ziti at any of my local markets. None. Zilch. Nada.
What do you think? Are there certain pasta shapes you can't find either? Do some shapes enjoy more popularity in some regions than others?
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13 Comments:
I can't get ziti either! Why is that?
evilchefmom at 9:05PM on 03/25/08
That's peculiar!
Around here, it seems hard to get pappardelle (but that may in general be a pasta less carried by supermarkets). A company in my hometown makes delicious cumin and jalapeno pappardelle that I dream about...sigh.
Christina at 9:11PM on 03/25/08
I feel bad for you LoCo - In Philadelphia, there is no pasta missing! Here we go again!
crazyspice at 9:26PM on 03/25/08
Ziti is the same thing as mostaciolli. I think it's a regional thing. As best I can tell, it's called ziti on the east coast and mostaciolli in the midwest. (Not sure about other parts of the country.)
chgoeditor at 9:47PM on 03/25/08
I thought mostaciolli has angled pointed ends and ridges and ziti is smooth without pointy ends.
evilchefmom at 10:15PM on 03/25/08
Penne is pretty much the same as ziti; also look for rigatoni, which is larger. And BTW, mostaccioli in St. Louis seems to refer only to the cooked pasta dish with tomato and ground beef and cheese that seems to be found mostly at catered dinners. The joke is that St. Louis marriages are null and void if there's not mostaccioli (which, I'm afraid, is pronounced "musk-a-CHO-lee", locally) at the reception.
lemons at 10:37PM on 03/25/08
And I would point out that substituting one short rubular pasta for another is perfectly okay unless you're cooking for someone who has a few issues with precision. I drift back and forth all the time. It's not like subbing angel hair pasts for lasagna noodles, or such.
lemons at 10:40PM on 03/25/08
I can't get a lot of different pastas in the south. So I split the difference and eat BB'Q instead!
Ciao!
Pavlov at 12:03AM on 03/26/08
Something marketed as "rigatoni" is about the same size as I remember ziti. Some penne are also the same size as ziti. The variations between brands for what should be identical pastas drive me crazy.
Ever try to find fusilli? I mean real fusilli? Nearly impossible. If you go to this site, there are lots of pasta shapes listed and seven shapes down is a short corkscrew shaped pasta they are calling fusilli. Directly below it appear real fusilli. No fusilli I ever ate as a kid was short.
chiff0nade at 5:14AM on 03/26/08
I can get Barilla Ziti at Kroger here, along with their Mastaccioli. Maybe you just need to request the Ziti?
LunaPierCook at 8:24AM on 03/26/08
I just bought some ziti at the super walmart in Wisconsin.
kramer73 at 11:24AM on 03/26/08
bucatini could be a bit more common... but living in NYC means you can get anything pretty much everywhere. so no complaints =X
cafepeach at 1:59PM on 03/26/08
OMG I cannot stand it. Where are you so I can find where you can get it? I cannot handle people without pasta. I am italian that never happens.
JerzeeTomato at 7:39PM on 03/26/08