Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

In this perspective we discuss recent theoretical and experimental concepts giving a route to a better understanding of conventional and unconventional pairing mechanisms between opposite-spin fermions arising in one-dimensional mesoscopic systems. With special attention, we focus on the problem of experimental detectability of correlations between particles. We argue that state-of-the-art experiments with few ultracold fermions may finally break an impasse and give pioneering and unquestionable verification of the existence of correlated pairs with non-zero center-of-mass momentum.