When I received the long shopping list from Arcangelo Dandini for the SpagWednesday pop-up dinner the great Roman chef would be preparing in London 26 October the instructions appeared to be straightforward.

For the alla matriciana sauce I could depend upon Andreas Georghiou of Andreas Fine Fruit & Vegetables to find 20 kilos of the highest quality Italian tomatoes in two varieties, pomodori a grappolo and pachino.

The request from the Eternal City’s pope of pasta for 7 kilos of either spaghettoni (thick spaghetti) or bucatini (thick spaghetti with a hole running through the center) by Pasticio dei Campi was an auspicious one: First, Giuseppi di Martino, the owner of that great Gragnano pasta house, is my go-to expert on all matters related to pasta. We tweet back and forth on a regular basis. Secondly, my good friend Dino Joannides stocks a full line of Pasticio dei Campi pasta at Melograno Alimentari, London’s most uncompromising Italian deli. I was certain the pasta would be an easy get.

First thing I did was contact di Martino for advice:

“Giuseppe,” I said, “Dandini wants either your spaghettoni or your bucatini for his alla matriciana. Which one should I get?”

“Get spaghettoni,” replied di Martini, “only Dandini doesn’t want our spaghettone. He wants our Vermicelli di Gragnano.”

“Vermicelli? Are you sure? Aren’t those the thin rice noodles the Chinese put in their soups?

“No. Our vermicelli is thick spaghetti.”

Reassured by one of Italy’s great pasta experts I called Joannides and ordered 7 kilos of bucatini. I wasn’t taking any chances. What kind of bucatini does Dandini want, asked Joannides? The kind we sell at the deli or the longer-cooking one Pasticio dei Campi supplies to restaurant chefs?

Shit!

I called back di Martino and asked him to contact Dandini, who does not speak English, and find out exactly what the chef wants. 15 minutes later de Martino got back to me.

“Dandini wants linguine.”

“LINGUINE?! He told me he wanted spaghettoni or bucatini. Plus it’s a SpagWednesday. We can’t have linguine. Linguine is flat”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.”

No you won’t. I sent a panic email to Katie Parla, the Rome-based food journalist and historian who had convinced Dandini to do the pop-up dinner:

“Giuseppe tells me by spaghettoni Dandini means Vermicelli di Gragnano and also that there are two bucatinis, a longer-cooking one for restaurants and a shorter cooking one mostly for home use and that only one is distributed to UK.  I’m worried: isn’t vermicelli that thin stuff in Asian soups?”

Her reply:

“You definitely want thick spaghetti, not vermicelli for this dish.”

I reread her message and thought, you’re not helping, Katie. Just as I was about to call Dino and ask him to change my order from vermicelli to chef’s bucatini, which he would need to order from Naples, Katie sent me this follow-up message:

“Nevermind. I was going on my Italian-American vermicelli definition, which has a 1.75mm diameter. Instead (obviously) Giuseppe is correct and his vermicelli are thicker than spaghetti, with a 2.1mm diameter. They will be perfect.”

With the matter of the spaghetti settled I thought I’d better check on the to-mah-toes. Or do you say to-may-toes?