How Should One Eat Spaghetti?

[Shel_B]

How hard can it be to sit down to a nice bowl of spaghetti covered with your favorite sauce? Yet, over the past few days several questions have come to mind after reviewing my spaghetti recipes and reading some comments in various places. So, let me ask you:

Why is it that it's considered inappropriate to break spaghetti when cooking it, or is it? I like cooking the spaghetti in a particular pot, which requires that the strands be broken in half. Plus, I enjoy eating the shorter strands. Yet a friend suggested I was "wrong" to prepare spaghetti in this manner, and several articles and numerous cooking shows tend to support that position. Why? What's the big deal about breaking the spaghetti?

Recently I read an article, and I cannot now find it, that suggested eating spaghetti after it's cooled down a bit, claiming that the cooler (not cold!) spaghetti tasted better, and allowed the more wheaty flavor of the pasta to come through. I never heard that before, and have been unable to find another citation anywhere. Any comments on this suggestion?

It's supposedly bad form to twirl the spaghetti on one's fork using a spoon. I never do that, but why is it considered such a bad thing?

One article suggested not to eat spaghetti from a plate, but instead one should eat it from a bowl with slightly sloping sides, not sides that are too vertical or steep. It seems that there are bowls specifically designed for eating spaghetti. Not eating from a plate I can understand, but why so particular about the shape of the bowl? No clear explanation was given for that, although the article said that, apart from other reasons, the bowl allows you to better twirl the spaghetti on to your fork. But then, with shorter, broken strands, is the twirling so big a deal?

What other requirements or rules might there be for eating and enjoying a bowl of spaghetti?

Edited November 7, 2013 by Shel_B (log)

[weinoo]

I don't think there are rules. My feeling is that certain people are obsessive-compulsives, and worry about every single thing they do regarding food, kitchens, pots, pans, faucets, etc.

Just enjoy your pasta. If it's good for you, who gives a shit?

[liuzhou]

Eat it any way you please.

I wouldn't cut my spaghetti in half - it is what we did for kids when they were young. It carries that childish connotation for me. Like you can't deal with adult spaghetti. I don't believe that, but there is a silly lingering bias.

As to twirling on a fork and spoon, I was taught that Italians never do that and so I didn't. Years later I lived in Italy. I can confirm that I never saw Italians doing that either.

But how you deliver your grub to your oral cavity is entirely your concern. The locals here eat spaghetti with chopsticks (and so do I half the time. Never with a spoon.)

I often serve spag in a bowl. But I guess that is the Chinese noodle influence. I don't have many plates.

[Bill Klapp]

VERY carefully. Use a fork to tease one strand at a time away from the others, suck the entire thing into your mouth, then chew it and swallow it, just like you see cartoon characters do in old cartoons. Unless, of course, it is lasagne. If you try that with lasagne, it will make a terrible mess!

But seriously...much of the artisanal strand dry pasta that you find in Italy has to be broken to put it in the pot (it is sometimes double the length of typical packaged dry pasta found in the U.S. and doubled back on itself). Fresh pasta is never served in long strands. When handmade, the result is generally strands no longer than half the length of a typical strand of dried pasta, and some chefs will even cut it into bite-sized bits. It is usually possible to take a bite without any or much twirling on the fork...

[Darienne]

I just wish my DH would agree to eat spaghetti more often. It's very carb-heavy and he's a carb-caring person. lol

[Mjx]

I grew up aware that you're not supposed to break up the strands of spaghetti, but I break it in half anyway, because it does pick up more neatly and I have a morbid horror of doing something criminally sloppy while eating. Also, if I cook spaghetti, I'm 100% certain to be eating it with at least one other person, and for some reason, most of these people wrangle full-length strands in a way that puts me off my food.

I prefer a soup plate for any pasta, just seems to work best. And, it's what I've always eaten pasta from...

It's nice to have a bottle of talc at hand, too, to deal with the grease stains from when a fellow diner whips something off a high-speed spaghetti strand, and it hits your clothes

As long as someone does not do that thing where they hang their face over their plate, and nip of and let the ends of their mouthful of spaghetti fall back into the platet, I can't think of any hard and fast rules for eating pasta. A good friend of mine hacks it up into little bits, and eats it with a spoon. The Italian in me winces, but really, no one dies as a consequence, so who cares.

[Shel_B]

I grew up aware that you're not supposed to break up the strands of spaghetti

But why? Yeah, I don't care, yet there's the rule, so to speak. Obviously, someone cares. Is there a Pasta Police in Italy that issue Spaghetti Citations if you break the strands?

[Bill Klapp]

I repeat, with feeling: they break the pasta in Italy when it is necessary to do so. That is why they do not have to twirl it. That said, however, they will do a mini-twirl to the extent required to get the shorter pieces of pasta on the fork or, in the unlikely event that they are served full-length strands, they will cut them with the edge of a fork before eating. There is nothing here. No pasta police. Don't break the pasta is either urban myth or something that seems childish to some Americans. It is practical, and probably ought to be done all of the time when using standard-length dried pasta. Easier to cook, easier to eat, no loss of the pasta's internal texture...

[Porthos]

I am as gauche as gauche can be apparently. I used to break the strands simply because they were easier to deal with while cooking. That has changed. Now I don't break my spaghetti specifically because I do use a spoon and the longer strands are easier to twirl onto my fork. Fortunately the world is saved from this horror as I don't eat spaghetti in restaurants. I serve spaghetti on a plate.

When I cook spaghetti for spaghetti dinners tied to feeding the actors after faire closes for the day I do not break the noodles then either at the request of our guild mistress.

That being said if you like shorter strands then go for it.

I would never want my noodles to cool a bit first. I am all about fresh HOT food.

[Jaymes]

Also, I think it's got something to do with how you feel about your spaghetti sauce.

In the US and, I'll readily admit, at my table, we're pretty sauce-crazy. I don't want pasta with just a thin coating of sauce. I want a big bite of sauce with a little bit of spaghetti. That's easier to do if the spaghetti is shorter.

When it's longer, you might not need a spoon to do your twisting, but you can, indeed twirl the fork a bit. The strands pull through the sauce. So you get a neat little bundle of spaghetti, with a mere coating of sauce. I've been told that's the preferred Italian way.

But me? I don't care if it is childish. If it's a good, hearty, American-Italian red sauce, especially a meat sauce, I'm happy to have short little strands with plenty of sauce.

In fact, if it's good enough, I'd be almost as happy having just a bowl of the sauce.

With a large spoon.

And not for twirling, either.

[dcarch]

This is true, not making it up. If you sneeze while eating spaghetti, there is a chance a strain of pasta can come out from your nose.

So breaking it in half will make it less embarrassing if that happens.

dcarch

(watch the ending)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNhDGUGxEXI

Edited November 7, 2013 by dcarch (log)

[Porthos]

In fact, if it's good enough, I'd be almost as happy having just a bowl of the sauce.

With a large spoon.

And not for twirling, either.

Jaymes, I get it. As a teenager when I would be making spaghetti for the family dinner I would grab a coffee mug and put some of the not-quite-finished sauce in it and eat it with a spoon.

[Jaymes]

In fact, if it's good enough, I'd be almost as happy having just a bowl of the sauce.

With a large spoon.

And not for twirling, either.

Jaymes, I get it. As a teenager when I would be making spaghetti for the family dinner I would grab a coffee mug and put some of the not-quite-finished sauce in it and eat it with a spoon.

Me, too. A spoon and a coffee mug full of spaghetti sauce.

That's the best, isn't it?

[Shelby]

I could wax poetic on my love of pasta for hours.

I break pasta if it's too long for my pot. But, I prefer non-broken for easier fork twirlage.

[Anna N]

I can't believe we are having this conversation but since we are..... Could the "don't break the pasta" rule relate in some way to the Asian customary belief that long noodles = long life?

[Martin Fisher]

re: breaking dry spaghetti

I'm not Italian but some Italian friends insist that spaghetti shouldn't be broken because broken spaghetti isn't easy to swirl on a fork or into a 'nest.'

[Bill Klapp]

Also, I think it's got something to do with how you feel about your spaghetti sauce.

In the US and, I'll readily admit, at my table, we're pretty sauce-crazy. I don't want pasta with just a thin coating of sauce. I want a big bite of sauce with a little bit of spaghetti. That's easier to do if the spaghetti is shorter.

When it's longer, you might not need a spoon to do your twisting, but you can, indeed twirl the fork a bit. The strands pull through the sauce. So you get a neat little bundle of spaghetti, with a mere coating of sauce. I've been told that's the preferred Italian way.

But me? I don't care if it is childish. If it's a good, hearty, American-Italian red sauce, especially a meat sauce, I'm happy to have short little strands with plenty of sauce.

In fact, if it's good enough, I'd be almost as happy having just a bowl of the sauce.

With a large spoon.

And not for twirling, either.

BUT...here is the thing: even with the typical (but not universal) Italian practice of using less sauce with less liquid and more solid and planting a small mound of it atop the pasta, the shorter strands will STILL make those neat little bundles of pasta and sauce. And much of the time, the sauce is more intensely flavored, so what the Italian bundle may lack in bulk vis a vis the Jaymesian bundle evens out by bringing it with the flavor...

[scubadoo97]

Food is meant to be enjoyed. Silly rules like breaking pasta and not mixing cheese with fish (both Italian) are irrelevant if that's how you enjoy it. It drives me batty to hear people act like its a cardinal sin. It's not universal it's regional. Since it would be perfectly normal in Mexico for instance to mix cheese and seafood

Eat drink and be happy

[Bill Klapp]

Very true. And what of the Filet-O-Fish, for heaven's sake? Should McDonald's be compelled to toy with perfection because of some Italian culinary custom? I think not. Of course, there is no Filet-O-Fish in Italian McDonald's restaurants, so that neatly ducks the issue...

[Martin Fisher]

I agree that frivolous rules are stupid, but if there is a practical reason for a rule it may make sense to consider it..

[rotuts]

Odd. Ive seen people in Italy eating spaghetti with the fork / spoon technique.

true, this was in the previous century, and in restaurants that had white table cloths.

maybe I was hallucinating. That's possible.

[annabelle]

My little granddaughter dispenses with utensils and uses her fists.

[Bill Klapp]

Odd. Ive seen people in Italy eating spaghetti with the fork / spoon technique.

true, this was in the previous century, and in restaurants that had white table cloths.

maybe I was hallucinating. That's possible.

Big napkin tucked in the collar, too? Pretty sure that was in one of the "Godfather"trilogy...

[Anna N]

My little granddaughter dispenses with utensils and uses her fists.

I allowed my granddaughter to eat spaghetti with her fingers long, long after she was much too old for that. She LOVED it and knew it must only happen at Nana's house. Followed my own grandma's dictum which was "Use you fingers. They were invented long before cutlery." My big brother taught me how to slurp it properly so you were hit in the nose with the end and had a face splattered with sauce. He was better at it than me. I stopped practising a few years ago.

[rotuts]

''''' Big napkin tucked in the collar, too? Pretty sure that was in one of the "Godfather"trilogy...''''

hope

i think it was a high end thing about not splattering on the table cloth

you know a sophisticated little twirl of the fork on the spoon.