We always knew pasta was a superfood.

Maybe not in the way of your kale, your chia seeds or your goji berries. But when was the last time any of those saved a town that was devastated by an earthquake?

The pasta in question is Amatriciana, which chefs around the world are adding to their menus in a bid to help the victims of the 6.2-magnitude earthquake that destroyed the dish’s hometown on August 24.

Made with cubes of fried crispy pork cheek, onions and tomato sauce, Amatriciana is commonly served with long pasta such as spaghetti or short pasta like penne-style bombolotti. It was born in Amatrice, a small town 139km north-east of Rome, which was flattened by last week’s earthquake. There have thus far been 292 confirmed fatalities.

Now the pasta is coming to Amatrice’s rescue. Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini has called on Italian restaurants around the world to put Amatriciana on their menus for a year and to donate the equivalent of two euros (A$2.97) from every order to earthquake relief.

Jamie Oliver has said that all of his Jamie’s Italian restaurants in the UK would serve Amatriciana for one month, with £2 (A$3.48) from every dish to go to earthquake victims.

“Many restaurants are getting involved and this could really make a difference,” Oliver said on Instagram.

The Amatriciana effort is understandably at its strongest in Italy itself. Hundreds of Italian towns are hosting Amatriciana food fairs. Around 600 of the country’s restaurants are reported have signed up to donate money from sales of the dish. Michelin-starred chef Giuda Ballerino is travelling to the ravaged towns and cooking the pasta for those the quake has left homeless, while pizza chef Pasqualino Rossi has developed a pizza based on the pasta’s ingredients and says he will collect the proceeds for a year before donating them all to the destroyed villages.

In Australia, the push has been spearheaded by the Council of Italian Restaurants of Australia and Giovanni Pilu of Pilu at Freshwater.

“We decided to make an Amatriciana pasta and then put it on the menu as a supplement and then we will give a portion of the takings to the Red Cross in Italy,” Pilu said in an interview.

He enlisted the help of Via Alta’s Alessandro Pavoni, Osteria Balla Manfredi’s Gabriele Taedducci and A Tavola’s Eugenio Maiale.

“We are all part of CITRA […] and they all absolutely agreed to do something straight away,” he said. “Anything we can do to help, even if we are so far away, I think is going to be good – so we’ll do as much as we can.”

Here’s our recipe for rigatoni Amatriciana. You can donate to the Italian Red Cross here.