What is size 2 pasta?

Question

I have a recipe requesting pasta #2 as an ingredient. What is pasta #2? I searched in several places but found nothing useful.

Pasta manufacturers do sometimes refer to their product by number (either indicating die size, the order they developed the shapes in, or possibly their favorite lotto numbers), but Adele is most likely correct. If the recipe says "2#", that means two pounds. (In American English, "#" is sometimes called the "pound sign", and using it as an alternative to "lbs." is very common in cooking.) If it's "#2", that probably requires more background information (where did you get the recipe) to answer.
If it means pounds that's a lot of pasta - enough for 9 or 10 people.
Any chance you could post a scan and/or picture (even from a cell phone camera is fine) of the recipe? Seeing exactly what's on the page would help figure out what its saying... Unless its an online recipe, in which case please link to it.
Would this maybe help? cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/4815/…

Adele C · Answer 1 · 2012-12-07 20:36:01Z

up vote 2 down vote

Is it possible that the recipe calls for two pounds of pasta? I have seen recipes where the # symbol is used as a notation of pounds.

answered Dec 7 '12 at 20:36

Adele C
438210

Daniele B · Answer 2 · 2013-01-15 12:09:18Z

This is most probably referring to the size of pasta of a certain type.

But you shoul be more detailed in your question, saying the type of pasta you refer to or the source where you got the receipt from.

If the pasta are noodles then you can bet it that they are talking about the size of pasta.

Pasta exist of many different kinds (at least here in italy), so pasta #2 is to us like saying "a car with comfortable chairs"...quite generic :-)

This link might help.

2 Answers