Bigoli

Bigoli, bigoi in Venetian dialect, are a thick long pasta from Veneto, much like thick spaghetti but with a rough, porous surface that holds sauce. They are pressed through a bronze die with a hand-crank press, the bigolaro. Veneto lists «Bigoi» among its traditional fresh pasta products and «Bigoli in salsa» among its traditional dishes. ¹²

The dough. The Venetian recipe described by the Accademia di Cucina Italiana mixes durum wheat semolina with whole wheat flour, which gives bigoli their yellow-brown colour. ² In some parts of Veneto duck eggs replace hen's eggs, and buckwheat flour may replace whole wheat. The school adds that bigoli began as a humble dough of flour and water served with a very modest sauce. ²

The bigolaro. The traditional tool is a hand-crank press whose bronze die gives the strands their rough surface. ² According to the Accademia, documents show bigoli popular in northern Italy as early as 1600 in Padua, where a pasta maker built such a machine to meet demand instead of shaping the pasta by hand. The press is costly because it is made of bronze, so few families still make bigoli at home, and the name may come from the dialect word «bigat», worm. ²

Fresh or dried. Italian law lets fresh pasta use soft wheat flour, and packaged fresh pasta must keep at least 24% moisture, a water activity of 0.92–0.97, be at least pasteurised and be stored at no more than 4 °C. ⁴ Dried pasta sold as durum wheat semolina pasta must be made only of semolina and water, with at most 12.5% moisture and at least 10.5% protein in the dry matter. ⁴ Pasta Morelli's dried bigoli are bronze-drawn from Italian durum wheat semolina, dried at low temperature, sold in 500 g packs and cooked for 22 minutes. ³

How they are served. In Venice bigoli come in salsa, with onions and anchovies, sometimes sardines, and optional pine nuts and raisins; elsewhere in Veneto they are tossed with duck or wild boar sauce. ² From the 1950s they became a dish for «lean days» such as Christmas Eve and Good Friday, eaten with sardines and onions in place of meat. ² The Veneto list of traditional products names «Bigoli in salsa» among the region's gastronomic products. ¹

Calories. There is no official nutrition record for bigoli themselves, but generic fresh pasta as bought gives 288 kcal per 100 g, with 54.7 g of carbohydrate, 11.3 g of protein, 2.3 g of fat and 31 g of water. ⁵ Once cooked, the same fresh pasta has 131 kcal per 100 g because it absorbs water. ⁵ Sauces such as anchovy and onion or duck ragù add their own fat and salt. ²

Allergens. Bigoli are made from wheat, and in the EU cereals containing gluten must be highlighted in the ingredients list; so must eggs when the dough contains them. ⁶² People with coeliac disease cannot treat bigoli as safe unless a product is specifically made without gluten, because both semolina and whole wheat flour come from wheat. ⁶²

Bigoli or pici. Both look like thick spaghetti, but bigoli come from Veneto and pici from Tuscany. ² Bigoli are pressed through the bronze die of the bigolaro, so they come out long, thick and very even; pici are stretched by hand, one by one, between the palms, so their shape is irregular. ² The dough differs too: semolina and whole wheat flour for bigoli, ordinary flour and water for pici. ²

Why it matters to you. Italian law reserves the name «pasta all'uovo» for pasta made with at least four whole eggs, 200 g, per kilogram of semolina, so check the label if you want bigoli with or without egg. ⁴ Keep packaged fresh bigoli cold, at 4 °C or less, and allow about 22 minutes for a thick dried kind. ⁴³ Wheat, and egg if used, are allergens that must appear clearly on the pack. ⁶