A name that tells you how to eat it
The word comes from pappare, a blunt Tuscan verb meaning to gobble or to scoff. It is not a delicate name and it is not a delicate pasta. Pappardelle are what you serve when the sauce has been on the stove since morning and everybody is hungry.
They are the ribbon of the Tuscan hills specifically: where tagliatelle belongs to Emilia and Bologna, pappardelle is what comes out of a Tuscan kitchen in autumn, when the hunting season starts and there is game to be dealt with.
How they are cut
The dough is a standard fresh egg dough, rolled out thin: thin enough to see the shadow of your hand through it, but no thinner, because a wide ribbon has to hold weight. Then you flour the sheet, roll it loosely, and cut across the roll with a knife at two to three centimetres.
Because the cut is so wide, pappardelle are the most forgiving ribbon to learn: a wobbly line matters far less at 3 cm than it does at 6 mm. They also cook fast (two or three minutes in well-salted water), and they must go straight into the pan with the sauce, never into a bowl to wait.
What to put on them
Ragù di cinghiale (wild boar, slow-cooked with red wine, juniper and tomato) is the pairing that made this shape famous, and it remains the correct answer. Lepre, hare, is the older and richer version, and the one an old Tuscan cook would choose if they could get it.
Beyond game, pappardelle take beautifully to duck ragù and to porcini in the few weeks of the year the mushrooms are worth having. The rule is simple: if the sauce is heavy, chunky and has been cooking for hours, this is the shape it wants.
Where to eat pappardelle in Florence
In Florence, pappardelle are an autumn and winter dish. When the hunting season opens, pappardelle al cinghiale (wild boar) and, if you are lucky, pappardelle alla lepre (hare) come back onto trattoria menus. Order them at lunch, when the ragù has been cooking since morning.
They are also a classic of the Florentine Sunday lunch, which is worth planning a whole day around: see what to do in Florence on a Sunday. For where to find them made by hand, read my guide to handmade pasta in Florence.
