Well when ya look at something that came from an old Italian food making facility, it really helps if you have an old Italian to go to with your questions. Fortunately Rochester still has a few who haven't assumed full time horizontal posture in a box.
Now, things like your industrial spaghetti and macaroni are extruded products, squeezed out of a die and cut by a rotating knife, boxcar loads of it were made at Gioia every week for years. Your lasagna noodle is made the same way.
That guillotine cutter is HALF of the machine that made the little square meat or cheese filled pies that taste so damn good. Of course if the "bakery" was poor, they could have employed a bunch of women to take the trays of pies back around the machine for a second trip through to cut the strips into squares.
Of course you gotta understand none of that factory pasta is as good as the pasta mama made fresh at home while the kids were at school, but when all those wimmen went to work in factories what could you do. So sayeth Uncle Vincenzo.
