The spiral pasta (csigatészta) is a specific type of pasta made for chicken-broth served at festive meals (including especially community celebrations like weddings or religious holidays, but also during family occasions and Sunday meals). It got its name (snail pasta) after its shape, since it was formed with the heddles of the loom or with a ribbed hardwood form, picked up with a knitting needle or a spindle, so that it became both hollow and ribbed. This form is also called goose larynx (lúdgége), a name unknown among Protestants in Vojvodina, and locally called spiral pasta. Spiral pasta and its production practices represent an unusual revival phenomenon: according to reports about the period after World War II, this type of pasta was made to fulfil the needs of the family or the neighbourhood only, while today it is known as a specifically Calvinist community activity in South Hungary. In settlements which earlier had handicraft circles that represented a significant community platform, in the nineties (presumably) spiral pasta became the attribute of needs triggered by emigration (local flavour), and community self-help: profit that came from jointly made spiral pasta was donated to the church or used for aiding believers and the poor.
Árpád Papp