Rustichella d'Abruzzo

Bronze dies and slow, low-temperature drying shape Rustichella d'Abruzzo pasta, made by the same family in Abruzzo since 1924. The company also makes pasta sauces.

About Rustichella d'Abruzzo

Based in
Pianella, Abruzzo, Italy
Founded
1924
Known for
bronze-die pasta dried slowly at low temperature

Rustichella d'Abruzzo dates to 1924 in Penne, in the province of Pescara. Its roots go back to Raffaele Sergiacomo, a miller who started making pasta, and his son Gaetano later built it into an industrial pasta factory. The company now works from Pianella, and the fourth generation, Carolina, Stefano and Piero, runs it.

The method centers on bronze dies and slow drying at low temperature. More recently the family bought a farm to grow its own wheat and spelt and began making pasta entirely from Abruzzo grain.

The range covers dried pasta in a run of shapes, along with the company's pasta sauces.

Rustichella d'Abruzzo questions

How is Rustichella d'Abruzzo pasta made?

Dry pasta gets its shape when the dough is pushed through a die, a block cut with shaped holes. Rustichella uses bronze dies, which the company says give the pasta the right roughness to hold on to sauce. It then dries the pasta slowly at low temperature.

What is Italian dried pasta made from?

Under a 1967 Italian law, pasta had to be made from durum wheat alone, a rule Rustichella describes in its own history. Durum is a hard wheat (its name comes from the Latin word for hard) whose flour is used especially for pasta, and semolina is the coarse, purified meal milled from it. Rustichella works with durum wheat semolina, including whole grain semolina, and the family now grows some of its own wheat.

See all brands