Short pasta for me. Funnily enough we've been debating just that this evening. I think that the best pasta in the world comes from Gragnano in the Bay of Naples. Happily, several varieties are available these days even in supermarkets. They are generally around £1.70 for a 500g bag, so even expensive pasta is cheap (as with good rice). There's a lovely short tube pasta in Sainsbury's called (I think) mezze rigate, one shaped like little curly trumpets in Tesco called gigli and one made of coiled thin hollow tubes in Waitrose called bucati spirali, all made in Gragnano and all wonderful. Whatever pasta you choose, make sure it's been made using bronze dies, which makes for a much better texture for holding the sauce. It might say "bronzo" on the pack. Pasta water should be as salty as the Mediterranean and should never contain oil. In Italy, it's a mortal sin to leave the kitchen once the pasta pan is on. And the pasta is added to the pan containing the sauce along with some pasta water, never vice versa and generally not drained in a sieve (if you do that, catch some pasta water in a jug). The most abject sight on earth is a pile of spaghetti on a plate with a heap of sauce dumped on top. That is just so English. Even worse, accompanied by a tub of months-old ready-grated Parmesan.