PASTA might be one of the most delicious foods on the planet, but be careful if you order Strozzapreti.

The weird looking, twisted handmade pasta shaped like a hangman’s knot was originally created to suffocate an insatiable priest.

You read that right.

Strozzapreti literally means ‘priest-stranglers’. It has a dark sinful past.

These corkscrew-looking penne date back to the 1600s. They were born upon a curse cast by women against gluttonous clergymen in central Italy, when the much-feared powerful Papal State ruled across the boot from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian seas.

Its dominion lasted eight centuries and left unexpected traces in local cuisine.

When Italy was united in the 1800s, the Papal State disintegrated into the central regions of Tuscany, Umbria, Latium, Emilia Romagna and Marche.

Today these are the gourmet realms of Strozzapreti where anticlericalism is still strong and people tend to be allergic to priests and prone to cussing.

But centuries ago, the all-mighty Catholic Church held not just the spiritual control over the souls of all farmers, peasants and artisans living there, but also revelled in material power.

Everything belonged to the priests and bishops: churches, lands, hamlets, roads, rivers, hills, forests and mountains. Artisan shops and taverns. Non-stop they raised taxes on all goods and services, and forced believers to pay for the remission of their sins and to buy a spot in Paradise for themselves and their beloved ones.

The church possessed everything, while its subjects had nothing. No wonder people hated the clergy.

These holy men were seen as the ‘ravenous lords’. Greedy not only of power and wealth but also of good food and wine. It was no mystery that priests loved fine and abundant eating. Each evening, villagers dreaded the moment when prelates travelling to Rome would knock at their door for a lavish meal and a good night’s sleep.

All locals could do was silently curse them. Poor housewives cooking in inns and taverns turned to their pots and rolling pins to undo what they deemed ‘evil’, believing that pasta could trigger a sort of exorcism and wipe-out the clergy.

While preparing the strangling Strozzapreti, loved and frequently ordered by the men of God, at each twist of the tiny dough, they would curse the rich abbots hoping they choke while devouring the dish.

“Mannaggia a te, mannaggia a te” (thou be damned) was the refrain heard in kitchens. It was like a spell, a voodoo said through clenched teeth. The pasta-making housewife, dubbed “la sfoglina” or “azdore”, rubbed in her hands the Strozzapreti until it twisted into a knot, as in the act of strangling the fat throat of a purple-cloaked bishop.

Priests were seen as gluttony devils and so it happened that many, according to local tales, while voraciously slurping the Strozzapreti ended up choking and died fork in hand. The pasta would stick to their throat, their faces turn fire-red, they’d stop breathing and their head would crash straight into the half-full dish of Strozzapreti, sending droplets of tomato sauce flying in the air amid the grins of other guests.

The clergymen either ate too quickly, or the curse had turned real. Italians have a saying: “nobody knows how to eat better than a priest, who can even take a wife once his belly is full”.

Despite being the cradle of Catholicism, Italians are extremely superstitious, and certain pagan rites have always survived along with amusing monkish terms. The “priest’s morsel” indicates the yummy, most succulent part of the hen: its ass. Something which was considered a top delicacy.

The anti-clergy fad got stronger in 1815, when Italians fought to unite Italy under a single enlightened monarchy, snatching the central regions from the Vatican’s hold.

The word “Strozzapreti” thus also came to indicate the leather knots used by bandits and outlaws who laid hands on preachers and strangled them when anticlericalism was at its peak. Killing a churchman was better than sacking a village.

Religion may come and go, but foodie fads die hard. Despite the papal kingdom no longer exists today its gastronomy traditions persist. Each central region has its own iconic variant.

The Strozzapreti recipe has nastier, more specific twists across Italy such as “Strangled Bishops with lemon” and “Strangled Bishops with cheese and fennel”. One thing is sure: Strozzapreti were very much loved by holy men even if more than one died at the dinner table, letting the pasta down the wrong pipe.

But as we all know, to the desires and temptations of tastebuds ‘tis impossible to resist.

The Church’s vast kingdom has gone yet the longstanding anti-Catholic culinary recipes survive and have turned into a tourist food magnet. Strozzapreti fairs are held throughout the year in many hamlets, luring hundreds of gourmands from across the world.

Strozzapreti boasts indeed the most picturesque name among the 400 different kinds of pasta Italy is famous for, a proof of locals’ wild imagination triggered by an aversion to holy matters.

It is best served with wild boar stew that clings onto the pasta’s curls and twists, with peas, mushrooms and truffles or also in capon broth.

However, while the despotic clerics are gone the curse lives on, as all spells do. If suffocating a priest was a cuisine delight in the past, gulping down these treacherous dwarf spaghetti too quickly could still be risky even for ordinary folk.

They’re so mouth-watering they melt on your tongue and slippery enough to run down your throat. Given their short but thick size it’s quite easy to get into a dangerous eating frenzy.

So next time you’re in central Italy don’t forget to chew a lot before swallowing the bite. Possibly accompanied by two glasses of good red wine like those surviving, diehard bishops did to avoid the curse.