Mama Mia, Massachusetts! Please answer me this: Is there anybody currently reading these words right now who doesn't like pasta? There are plenty of us pasta lovers who would consider it an honest-to-goodness sacrilege to dislike pasta.

Now I realize that there are many different types of pasta. Honestly, "pasta" covers a lot of ground. Let's see...just a few examples...spaghetti, angel hair, fettuccini, manicotti, cannelloni, rigatoni, macaroni, cavatappi, ziti, penne, ravioli, lasagne, tortellini...really, the list does indeed go on...and on...and on.

Growing up, my favorite pasta dish was spaghetti. Always spaghetti. With meatballs or sausage. And, thanks to my late, loving mother, I could never order spaghetti at a restaurant. What can I say? Mom raised the bar in my eyes (and taste buds).

Honestly, my mom's cooking spoiled me. The few times I ordered it at a restaurant were a disappointment. It was never the same. Anyway, at some point growing up, my favorite pasta dish changed from spaghetti to Fettuccine Alfredo. It has remained my pasta fave to this very day.

Every year, February 7th is National Fettuccine Alfredo Day (I realize I'm over a month late, but do you really need a special day to tell you to eat fettuccine alfredo?) and I decided to research which local eating establishments make the best anything Alfredo.

The crowd-sourced business review website Yelp helped me out a lot by compiling a list of the best restaurants for Alfredo in Western Massachusetts and we are very fortunate because three Berkshire County eateries are in the Top 10!

Here's the list according to Yelp:

  1. Joe's Cafe & Spaghetti House - Northampton
  2. Sibaritas - East St., Pittsfield (Yayyyy!)
  3. Mazzeo's Ristorante - South St., Pittsfield (Ditto!)
  4. Emma's Everyday Gourmet - Westfield
  5. John's Pizzeria & Restaurant - Chicopee
  6. Pasta E Basta - Amherst
  7. Gianni Fig's Ristorante - Deerfield
  8. Mom & Rico's Specialty Market - Springfield
  9. Brooklyn's Best - North St., Pittsfield (Awesome)
  10. Via Appia - Wilbraham

Great job all around to our three local restaurants that made the top 10 and a special shoutout to Amici Berkshires (West Stockbridge) for making the top 20. Visit Yelp's website for the full rundown here.

LOOK: Best Beers From Every State

To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.

Gallery Credit: Angela Underwood

LOOK: Food history from the year you were born

From product innovations to major recalls, Stacker researched what happened in food history every year since 1921, according to news and government sources.
 

Gallery Credit: Joni Sweet

50 Most Popular Chain Restaurants in America

YouGov investigated the most popular dining brands in the country, and Stacker compiled the list to give readers context on the findings. Read on to look through America's vast and divergent variety of restaurants—maybe you'll even find a favorite or two.

Gallery Credit: Paul Feinstein

LOOK: These Are the 50 biggest retailers in America

Stacker compiled a list of the 50 biggest retailers in the country, using retail sales data from Kantar, provided by the National Retail Federation.

Gallery Credit: Madison Troyer & Zack Abrams

More From WSBS 860AM