Whether we’re twirling it on our forks or baking it into a creamy, cheesy  casserole, there’s no denying that we love pasta.   According to the National Pasta Association, Americans alone eat about 15 pounds per person per year. For a better sense of what that means, consider that the average Italian — who eats pasta daily — eats about 51 pounds per year. Yet, despite our love of these starchy noodles, we’d be willing to bet our weight in dried penne that most people don’t actually know very much about pasta.

When we think of pasta, most of us picture the semolina flour-based noodle stocked on supermarket shelves in a colorful cardboard box, but pasta comes in a range of different varieties both dried and fresh. On the contrary, pasta is found fresh as well as dried.

If all this talk of pasta is making you hungry, go put a big pot of well-salted water on to boil (and please, no oil — it’ll just make the pasta sauce slide off the noodles) and read on. We’ve got some fun pasta facts to keep you busy until your noodles reach a perfect al dente.