Alphabet pasta, also referred to as Alfabeto or Alphabetti Spaghetti, is pasta

Pasta

Pasta is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, now of worldwide renown. It takes the form of unleavened dough, made in Italy, mostly of durum wheat , water and sometimes eggs. Pasta comes in a variety of different shapes that serve for both decoration and to act as a carrier for the...

 that has been mechanically cut or pressed into the letters of an alphabet

Alphabet

An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...

. It is often served in an alphabet soup, sold in a canned, condensed broth. Another variation, Alphaghetti, consists of letter-shaped pasta in a marinara or spaghetti sauce.

One common American brand of condensed-style alphabet soup is Campbell's

Campbell Soup Company

Campbell Soup Company , also known as Campbell's, is an American producer of canned soups and related products. Campbell's products are sold in 120 countries around the world. It is headquartered in Camden, New Jersey...

. This soup, like its competitors', is marketed towards parents for its educational value.

A similar product, Alphabetti Spaghetti, was sold by the H. J. Heinz Company

H. J. Heinz Company

The H. J. Heinz Company , commonly known as Heinz and famous for its "57 Varieties" slogan and its ketchup, is an American food company with world headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Perhaps best known for its ketchup, the H.J...

 for 60 years before being discontinued in 1990. Like Campbell's alphabet soup, it contains alphabet pasta canned in tomato sauce

Tomato sauce

A tomato sauce is any of a very large number of sauces made primarily from tomatoes, usually to be served as part of a dish...

, but no cheese. It was later reintroduced by Heinz in 2005.

External links

• Pasta shapes - An illustrated guide at Food-Info.net