Why does pasta come in so many shapes and sizes?!
Answers: Italy has over 350 different types of pasta shapes and sizes. You most commonly will see your supermarket or even gourmet emporium with no more than a dozen or two of the most popular shapes and/or sizes. Which pasta when? Well, its a matter of taste, I personally don't care for fettucine so I often (again this is a personal choice) substitute the thinner linguine for fettucine which are wider. If there is any one rule of thumb: the less complex the shape, the less complex the sauce, the bigger the shape, the chunkier the sauce; the thicker the sauce, the thicker the pasta (using fettucine, penne for your cream sauces). Outside of that I don't know how to help you.
maybe because depending on what u r gonna do or cook, u can have more options to choose from
Because it can.
The come in a lot of different shapes and sizes because the cooker or food designer want them to be interesting. Every restuarant wants their pasta to be fancier and they think that will make the people but that pasta. They think that will sell their pasta better and more and more pasta kinds or developing.
to make the food presentation exciting and to be able to make variations.
Because variety is the spice of life.
me being a chef i know this. different pasta for different sauce. thin pasta goes with a light sauce so its not so heavy seaming. take angel hair most the time its with a olive oil sauce or wine sauce. take a big pasta like fettuccine or parpadele. they are fat and need a heavy sauce to go with it. imagine if you had angel hair Alfredo to much sauce not enough pasta. just like if u use fett. for olive oil sauce to much pasta for the sauce. pene you stab there for it usually has meat or something to stab with it. its all in what pasta goes with sauce. i was the sous chef of a four and a half star classic Italian ristorante. we had to take into consideration when planning a pasta special to make sure and order the pasta accordingly.
pasta can be the size of a brick and i would still eat it, i love the different sizes and color, im a big fan of buttered noodels