The first concept rolled out this year: “Super Mario Power-Up” shapes that has pasta designed after elements from the video games, including Fire Flower, Super Star and Super Mushroom.

We may not be conscious of the phenomenon, but we associate different colours, shapes and sounds with different flavours in ways that can subtly shape our perceptual experience, for example.

When most people think of shapes, they imagine a triangle, a rectangle, or maybe even a fancier- sounding rhombus or trapezoid. But to mathematicians, shapes encompass a vast universe of ...