Specialty pasta sales are growing despite the economy

October is officially National Pasta Month, but doesn't every month feel like that? Pasta is in cold salads in the summer and hearty soups in the winter; it's on the table year round as the main dish under fresh tomato and basil, garlic and olive oil, vodka sauce or whatever tastes and outdoor temperatures dictate.

"Better than any other time in America, people love good pasta," says Jerry Turci, who hails from Gragnano, Italy.

"There are plenty of different pastas on the market, and this is a category that continues to grow, regardless of economic climate," Joe Gozzi, ShopRite's director of specialty foods, wrote in an e-mail from Italy, where he is doing research for the supermarket chain's next imported product line. ShopRite recently started selling a line of organic specialty pastas imported from Italy and packaged under its own label.

But Americans love pasta, period, not just the specialty products. Americans eat pasta an average of seven times a month, says a survey by the National Pasta Association. And 60 percent of respondents said pasta was the one food they could not live without.

But just because we're eating large quantities of it doesn't mean we're doing it right. Just ask Turci. He and his wife rarely go to restaurants because he gets so aggravated by the crimes against pasta he says he witnesses around him.

First, says Turci, the pasta is prepared incorrectly — it is precooked in many places, run under hot water and mixed with hot sauce before being served.

Then there is the matter of pasta and sauce pairings.

"In Italy, every pasta has a different sauce," he says, using linguine and clam sauce as the perfect example. "Here, you get penne with everything." And even worse, people start eating it.

"You go to a restaurant and it makes me crazy, because I see the guy who's eating spaghetti with a knife and fork," Turci says. "The guy next to me, he's having linguine with clam sauce, and he's putting cheese on it."

His tone is incredulous, with a bit of contempt. But more than anything, he knows what these people are missing.

So please, during this month of national recognition, it's time not just to eat pasta but to pay it the proper respect – prepare it the right way and pair it with its perfect style of sauce. Pretend this is Italy and make Turci proud.

Some pasta/sauce pairings are a perfect match: linguine and clam sauce, cavatelli and broccoli, ziti and meat sauce, says famed Italian chef and restaurateur Lidia Bastianich. But beyond these, the many shapes of pasta and kinds of sauce can make pairing them tricky. Bastianich has a few basic rules for dried pasta:

• Long, thin noodles, such as capellini, spaghetti or linguine
  Sauce: Olive-oil based, like pesto or white clam sauce
• Thicker strands, such as fettuccine and tagliatelle
  Sauce: Cream sauces and ragùs
• Short, tubular shapes such as penne, ziti and rigatoni
  Sauce: Thick or chunky. (Keep the size of the ingredients in mind. Rigatoni may feel too big for a simple tomato sauce; penne would work better.)
• Sturdy shapes such as fusilli, farfalle and campanelle
  Sauce: Sauces with texture, such as pieces of meat, vegetable or bean, find the pasta's crevices and twists.