Spaghetti Etiquette

Canadians also use a spoon to eat spaghetti.

I throw it in chatty servers’ faces. Viciously.

A spoon is a necessity.

Example:

I twirl it against the side of the dish like they do in Italy... and down south apparently.

I don't care what the Italians do. I enjoy using a spoon to twirl my spaghetti.

I also wash myself in a lot of places that Italians probably don't.

I don’t use a spoon.

Stealth pasta draining thread.

Spaghetti is the basic bitch of pasta dishes. Deliver me from Chef Boyardee

like a good italiano I eat it with my hands

I learned how to twirl it on a spoon, but didn’t do it for very long. It was like training wheels. Before long, I could say “look ma, no spoon.”

Spoon? Do you mean fork? How could you eat spaghetti with a spoon?

Rofl R10.

Fascist savages.

No wonder they elected Meloni.

I always recreate the scene from "Lady and the Tramp" when eating spaghetti. If I'm eating by myself, i ask a stranger, and they always oblige.

Spaghetti Etty.

Texas native and I was taught to use a spoon, though I don’t do that anymore.

My Grandfather was Italian from northern Italy and ate pasta twice a day every day, always with a spoon. Otherwise it's messy. He was a land-owner gentlemen who still wore a three-piece suit even in summer, in the 90s, when he came to visit us, so I think i's the right way.

I’ve always eaten with a fork, never a spoon. You can’t pick noodles up with a spoon.

"how do people in Italy eat their spaghetti?"

With a dull butterknife Rose

I just make sure to bring a friend who has a handy pair of manicure scissors to cut off any excess spaghetti I manage to cram in my mouth.

I don't eat peasant chow.

^^ Made by people whose names end in vowels!

r20=Lucy Ricardo

[quote]Spaghetti Etty.

Spaghetiquette

OP, stick to Spaghetti-Os.

Never used a spoon, nor do I twirl it. At least not more than one small twirl if I need to make sure it stays on the fork. Usually just take a forkfull of it - not a huge one.

Just fucking eat it! Who cares…

Right On, R27.

Drain it, too. Nobody cares!!!

R27 That waitress cares.

[1] Canadians can’t even pronounce “pasta.”

Use the plate to twirl spaghetti on your fork.

R6 are you the one who eats pizza with a knife and fork ?

[quote]A spoon is a necessity.

No it isn't. Just twirl it on the plate. Like a grown up.

I was taught how to twirl it on a fork

Stealth pasta rinsing thread.

According to my Italian relatives, only really old people eat spaghetti by twirling them on a spoon. It just went out of fashion.

In Argentina where we have even more italian descendents than in America, we never use the spoon. I dont know if it's certain parts of Italy do that or all of it but I think its likely the former

I cut it into small pieces with a knife and fork. Don’t have the time or patience to make eating anything harder than it needs to be for no discernible reason.

It’s made for a fork, but use a spoon because you’ll want to get every drop!

Hey R35, see R8.

Shpaghetti

[quote]Canadians also use a spoon to eat spaghetti.

No we don't.

Me too r5 and I’m Canadian

Meryl just sucks it up.

I prefer farfalla

[quote] Spoon? Do you mean fork? How could you eat spaghetti with a spoon?

You've got your fork in your right hand, spoon in your left hand. You grab some spaghetti with your fork. You place the tips of the fork tines on the bowl of the spoon, then twirl your spaghetti into a ball.

Then, you shovel that ball of spaghetti into your mouth.

I only eat spaghetti in the privacy of my own home, for all the above reasons.

I usually eat my meals reading a book, so before I start I cut the portions into bite size pieces.

Are there people so incurious they can't picture that the spoon method requires a FUCKING FORK and the spoon?

Fork.

R48 I do the same. I read.

R40 Rinsing ≠ Draining, dumb fuck.

You suck up spaghetti like a vacuum cleaner. The DLers who use a spoon remind me of the woman instructing the Japanese girls on how to eat pasta in this clip.

My grandmother came to New York from Sicily and she instructed her children (as well as her doting grandchildren) to ALWAYS use a spoon. What kind of heathen would tilt their plate to aid their twirling when their spoon is right there?

My grandmother had refinement and would never have tolerated bad table manners. If I see you twirling your spaghetti without a spoon, I will be judging you.

I do not see what purpose the spoon serves. You can isolate a few strands of spaghetti on your plate as well as on a spoon (?) Just start from the outside.

Besides which, it generally looks overly greedy to eat with utensils in both hands.

#YourGrandmotherSucksCocksInHell

R54 that's funny because my relatives are from Sicily too, and it turns out we agree. By the way, I don't mind that my relative laughs about me - I like old-fashioned things.

Italians do not use spoons to eat spaghetti.

Restaurants in Italy don't even set the table with spoons unless soup is being served.

In the decades I lived there I never saw anyone eating spaghetti with a spoon.

What you do occasionally see though, which is pretty cool, is men tucking their table napkin into the top of their shirt, bib style, to protect it from sauce.

I use a fork, and twirl it on the plate.

R54 you don’t tip your plate. There is no reason whatsoever to use a spoon to get a forkful of spaghetti into your mouth.

True. You do not tip your plate.

And actually, pasta in Italy is usually served in a pasta plate, a low sided bowl.

My mother's uncle lived in the same city as us. Both he and my mother were immigrants. He taught us that it was proper to eat spaghetti with a spoon. He also taught us some twisted way to hold a fork when using a knife to cut a piece of meat. It may have been deemed proper to use a spoon 60 years ago but no longer. I never saw anyone eat spaghetti with a spoon in Italy.

[quote] I also wash myself in a lot of places that Italians probably don't.

And what places would that be, r6? You realize it's actually [italic]illegal[/italic] to build a bathroom that doesn't have a bidet in Italy?

I'm not a Southerner but I have never, ever seen someone use a spoon to eat or twirl their spaghetti.

I don’t eat anything I have to fight with in public. The waitress sound like a yenta.

[quote]I don't care what the Italians do. I enjoy using a spoon to twirl my spaghetti.

R6 also eats Spaghetti-0s, Velveeta and Spam. Sound advice from white trash.

[quote]like a good italiano I eat it with my hands

The use of the fork in Europe, as well as the concept of table manners, began in Italy.

Don't rinse your pasta after it's cooked and you wont need a spoon. The starch from the pasta makes it stick. The Great Pasta Washing Debate = SOLVED.

⚫

R68, the great pasta debate is not about rinsing vs. draining, it’s about not dumping the pasta water out of the pot at all. Anti-drainers insist that you use tongs or a claw to take the pasta out of the pot and into a serving bowl or into a pot of sauce and adding some of the pasta water to the sauce.

I do not do this. I also don’t use a spoon to assist with twirling spaghetti on my fork. You fat whore eat way to many carbs.

Uh-oh, spaghetti nos.

Yes, R68, you dump it into a colander and shake off the excess water and then combine it with the sauce.

My spaghetti twirled UP!

I had no idea what eating spaghetti with a spoon meant until I saw the video at R57. That looks so stupid and prissy. Why would you want to eat a ball of spaghetti? That’s gross. If you want to eat a wad of pasta then order ravioli or gnocchi.

I wonder if these pretentious nellies twirl ramen into a ball before eating too.

Only hicks use a spoon.

I am not Italian but I am from NY. I have never used a spoon. I did work for an Italian artist who made and ate pasta daily; one uses a fork and a hunk of bread.

Italians would laugh at anyone using a spoon.

Tuck a napkin down the front of your shirt. Slurp the spaghetti off of a fork. That's how it's done in Calabria.

I'm from Chicago and have never in my life used a spoon with spaghetti. I twirl with my fork.

I can confirm what r78 said. There may have been a brief period in the mid-20th century where it was perceived that eating spaghetti with a spoon was “higher class”, or at least not lower class, but it certainly didn’t last. You’d now be labeled an effete tosser if you used a spoon.

Can't believe OP missed the chance to call his thread "Spaghettiquette".

Why does anyone care how anybody else eats something, or what they eat or don’t eat? Seriously, what’s it to you?

What a bunch of control freaks.

Serve spaghetti in warm bowls and twirl against the side of the bowl.

I am from a large Italian family and there are small variations of spaghetti transportation. Flat plate, side of bowel, bread pusher, no big deal. When I went to college, I was chagrined when my roommate took his forks and cut his pasta into short threads and used his fork in the shovel position to transport the short pieces.

[quote] You fat whore eat way to many carbs.

Said the fat whore who can't spell.

I just lift the plate to my mouth and shovel it in with a fork.

😭😭😭😭😭

I’ve never heard of twirling pasta. Who wants to eat big clumps of pasta. The whole point of spaghetti is to eat its individual stands. Otherwise I would’ve ordered lasagna.

The twirling is so that you avoid eating it like this.

You’re supposed to slurp noodles. The louder the better. It means you’re enjoying it. If you don’t slurp, it’s a great insult to the chef.

Up north we use a spoon because it's how you do it. In the south you break it into pieces with your fork. Maybe even use a knife. Oye. Or they sometimes break it before cooking it.

Marcella Hazan, the doyenne of Italian cooking, said you should not use a spoon but twirl it against the side of the dish.

Look at this guy:

Just grab a handful at a time and shove down your gullet. Repeat until bowl is empty.

For me, it depends on the sauce. If it's on top of the noodles, I just put the tip of the fork in the dish and start twirling. That way I get three or four noodles wrapped around the fork, covered in sauce, and eat it. When the sauce is at the bottom I do the same thing but stick the fork in the side of the dish to get some sauce on the noodles. If the noodles are only covered in some oil and garlic, I murder the chef.

I get so tired about how they do it in Italy, fuck the Europeans, they're not paragons of intelligence, look at the mess they're in now. And grandfather came from Calabria too! He would have said vaffanculo and go to hell, I eat how I want.

Stealth Greg thread.

[quote]I’ve never heard of twirling pasta. Who wants to eat big clumps of pasta. The whole point of spaghetti is to eat its individual stands. Otherwise I would’ve ordered lasagna.

I don't understand what you are saying or how you are eating your spaghetti. Individual strands? Do you lift them up one at time and stick your head underneath your fork? The question is whether you use the side of your plate or a spoon to twirl your spaghetti. Either way, you take like three strands with your fork to twirl. It's not a huge clump.

Look at the video at R57. It’s a huge clump. You’re basically eating a dough ball.

Your MOM’S a dough ball!

[quote] Marcella Hazan, the doyenne of Italian cooking, said you should not use a spoon but twirl it against the side of the dish.

Marcella Hazan is not a god.

Marcella Hazan is unknown in Italy.

There is no Marcella Hazan type in Italy. Italian cookbooks were things like Artusi and Ada Boni. I guess maybe you could consider Ada Boni the Italian Marcella although most people learn cooking from their parents and relatives. Boni's books were a great reference point for homemakers though.

Gualtiero Marchesi was another culinary institution in Italy. I used his "La cucina italiana. Il grande ricettario" while living there. It is a great volume. Maybe the best all-encompassing Italian cookbook ever.

When I first got to Italy and didn't speak Italian very well and didn't know what I was doing, I used Hazan's first two books. And I will tell you that they are excellent and authentic.

(And BTW: no pressure cooker risotto in sight.

I use a spoon, but no fork.

I use no utensils and pile up my spaghetti on a plate so I can eat it hands-free, alligator-style.

[quote]Marcella Hazan, the doyenne of Italian cooking, said you should not use a spoon but twirl it against the side of the dish.

That only works if you're eating it from a bowl.

If I'm by myself, I will twirl on the plate.

If I'm with other people or in a restaurant where other people can see me, I use a spoon, mostly because I find that other people are usually exhausting and think that table manners and etiquette, in general, are bludgeons to beat people, rather than a way to make people more comfortable by having common rules for how to do things.

Few people will critize using a spoon, whereas the spoon-uses usually take great pleasure in pointing out how gauche it is not to use a spoon.

[quote]If I'm with other people or in a restaurant where other people can see me, I use a spoon

What sort of Italian restaurant do you go to where it is considered good manners to use a spoon?

[quote]What sort of Italian restaurant do you go to where it is considered good manners to use a spoon?

Well, for starters, I don't got it Italian restaurants that often because I don't really like Italian all that much.

However, every Italian restaurant I've ever been to in NYC, including those in Little Italy, provide a spoon, as far as I recall. Since I'd never choose to go to an Italian restaurant on my own, I couldn't tell you whether any of them were authentic, but some were pretty expensive if that's any indication dinner for four $300-400 range, not including wine.

Mama June cooks us butter 'n 'sketti!

Using a spoon is pretentious.

Why slop around with a bunch of spaghetti in a fancy restaurant? If you MUST eat pasta, just order bowtie or penne. It's all carbs, just the same.

No, using a spoon is gauche.

Spork.

For R6,

[quote]"The difference between Italian boys and American boys,” the great Gore Vidal remarked to Sean Strub over cocktails at La Rondinaia — Vidal’s villa in Ravello on the Amalfi Coast — “is the Italian boys have dirty feet and clean assholes, while American boys have clean feet and dirty assholes.”

^ Yes, Mr Vidal 65 years ago. In the south. Believe me, Italians today are obsessed with hygiene.

[quote] What sort of Italian restaurant do you go to where it is considered good manners to use a spoon?

The Walmart kind.

[quote] However, every Italian restaurant I've ever been to in NYC, including those in Little Italy, provide a spoon, as far as I recall.

That’s for your soup, dear.

[quote]That’s for your soup, dear.

LOL - um, no.

But, I did chuckle when I read that, so kudos.

I thought this thread was going to be about a twee new Wes Anderson movie.

Spaghettiquette?

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Ivana Trump, Sr., did not twirl her spaghetti.

r82 & R121 Really?

🍝 My Grandpa Giovanni from Sicily, expertly twirled with a spoon and a fork.

That spoon thing is pure American bullshit from people who are as Italian as senile joe Biden is Irish

You don’t need to serve spaghetti in a bowl or shallow pasta dish to be able to twirl it on a fork without a spoon, the fork doesn’t even need to touch the plate for a proper twirl.

IT TWIRLED !!!

I use the spoon and the fork. I never wear a bib, and I never get a drop of sauce on my tie.

[quote]and I never get a drop of sauce on my tie.

Wearing a tie to eat spaghetti? Fancy!

"Marcella Hazan, the self-appointed American doyenne of middle-brow bourgeois cooking" said what now?

Come to think of it I don’t think I’ve ever eaten spaghetti in a restaurant. Penne alla vodka has been the ubiquitous side for the past two or three decades and restaurants are increasingly not including sides.

[quote] [1] Canadians can’t even pronounce “pasta.”

My closest friend is Canadian and pretty WASPY, but it always sounds vulgar when he pronounces it "pass-ta".

He also refused to pronounce the name of Marin County correctly when he visited me when I lived in San Francisco. "Mare-in". Jesus!

I cut spaghetti with a knife and fork and eat with either a spoon or fork.

It's so vulgar when people let it hang out of their mouth and chew it.

Cutting pasta is as bad as rinsing.

All my great-grandparents immigrated from southern Italy to NYC in the early 1900’s and my grandparents were born in the city in the aughts - so all similar in terms of cultural background, region and class (working). My maternal grandparents always used a spoon, (and served the salad last) paternal grandparents never did (and served salad first). So it seems to have been more of a personal quirk or family preference than anything else, but it does seem to have died out. I’ve never used a spoon, I think my mom usually does, but honestly I haven’t noticed one way or the other - I’ll watch her eat next Sunday.

Has anyone in this thread coined the term “spaghettiquette”?

^ Oh rats, sorry GuyBitchie!

I shovel as much spaghetti into my mouth as I can, then my best friend trims it with her cuticle scissors!

[quote]Penne alla vodka has been the ubiquitous side for the past two or three decades

An actual Italian restaurant never serves pasta "on the side". Pasta is a first course. (although it can be a main meal if you forgo the second course...but never as a side dish....at least in any restaurant that claims to be authentic).

Penne alla vodka. A 1980 concoction. Today, decidedly déclassé.

^1980s

Just don't drain it.

Pasta is drained.

Occasionally tongs are used to retrieve pasta from the pot if a dish requires it. Or slotted utensil might be used to retrieve stuffed pasta like ravioli which is delicate and could break. But outside of those situations, pasta is drained into a "scolapasta".

R140, I’m not talking about an “authentic” Italian restaurant specializing in fine dining, but old school family run restaurants and pizzerias where an entree like chicken parm comes with a side of pasta and a salad. It used to be linguine or spaghetti but penne alla vodka still seems to be very popular among NY metro carb eaters.

Never serve an Italian spaghetti with meatballs unless you want to wake up with a horse's head in your bed. Italians don't eat meatballs!

Italians most certainly DO eat meatballs--just generally not in a sauce with spaghetti.

[quote]Italians don't eat meatballs!

Meatballs are a much loved dish in Italy but they are served as a second course. Sometimes in tomato sauce, sometimes just fried. Made with ground meat or chopped leftover cooked meat, lightly breaded. Sometimes egg shaped. Never huge as they are in the US.

In certain parts of the South tiny meatballs are in pasta dishes. In the South sometimes in lasagne.

R140, Dan Tana in WeHo is a beloved Italian restaurant, although they do serve mostly Italian American dishes. You can order a main course pasta, but all of the entrees come with a butter plate sized spaghetti. And at their prices, they should..The aglio olio is simple and delicious.

You’re supposed to twirl it with your tongue. 👅

What is this bowl shit. I was dating a guy whose mother was Italian. I made a pasta dinner and tried to put the spaghetti in a bowl and he was outraged. Said it belonged in a plate, god dammit.

[quote] You realize it's actually illegal to build a bathroom that doesn't have a bidet in Italy?

R23 I didn't know there were that many gay bottoms in Italy!

^^My attempt at humor was in response to R63, not R23.

Always used a spoon to twirl here in the US. Early in my travels to Italy, I was shamed out of it by family, friends, and restaurant staff.

You’re ALL wrong.

I know a grand lady. Far grander than anyone you know or would hope to know.

A grand lady, I tell you.

Grand.

Flys only first class.

She doesn’t use a spoon OR a fork.

She uses her comb.

Her name is Dona Klobucharetti.

Capice? 💋👌

R154 Don't quit your day job.

🍝 I always bring my own fork AND spoon.

And my own gun.

In this world, you must always be prepared.

I just rewatched the movie Heartburn tonight. There is a scene where Rachel brings a pasta dish to bed for she and Mark to share. One bowl, two forks and two spoons. It was the eighties, they are supposed to be yuppies as well as educated writers. Preceived elegance and sophistication.

I still can't get over the person that cuts their spaghetti. Did Mommy do it for him? Along with his chicken nuggets?

With a spoon is no longer in fashion.

Without a spoon you look like a disgusting pig and risk splattering it all over yourself, or worse still, over someone else.

Whether one drains it or not has caused social division so severe that it might one day lead to War.

There is CLEARLY only one solution: never, ever, ever, ever eat spaghetti.

It’s called spaghettiquette!

Oooh! Look at me! I had a fancy grandma with fancy spaghetti manners and shit.

Well, my garndmother had to work in the mines!

Just kidding. She was just a racist little troll.

Like most grandmothers of our generation.

Look, that's why I break the spaghetti in two before I cook it. It's easier to eat. I still twirl it onto my fork, but no spoon needed.

Why the extra step of twirling? Seems faggy to me.

Breaking spaghetti is almost as bad as rinsing.

I use chopsticks

Guess they no longer make Franco-American Spaghetti, but I grew up on this canned delicacy. The orange (no doubt artificially colored) sauce was a true delight.

R106 has flat pieces of glass with no rims instead of plates.

No spoon at home or with friends/fam for me, but if it is at a restaurant with one of those bowls that is 2x the normal size, and the sauce is sloppy and plentiful, I will use a spoon so as not to spatter myself.

Speaking of spaghetti, I don’t know how to spell it ? but I made scaldatta last night. I think it means scalded? It is an expression (used in the central part of Italy I think?) for cooking leftover spaghetti in a saucepan with just a little sauce, so it gets scalded and a bit crunchy.

It’s different from the Italian assailant / assassins pasta, (when you actually cook your pasta in a saucepan in the sauce, & I don’t know how to spell that either.)

Anyway I haven’t had it like that since I was a kid and it was so good, yet so basic.

[quote]yet so basic.

Like you.

R166, the canned Franco American spaghetti is still made. Even though Campbell's bought them over 100 years ago, they kept the name until fairly recently. I use it for a casserole I love (don't ask, not that you would).

[quote]Look, that's why I break the spaghetti in two before I cook it. It's easier to eat.

This is a babytastes habit.

They sell half-length spaghetti, R171.

I'm sure they do- I don't shop at the Dollar Store.

Amazon sells it, too.

When I was first living on my own I had to break spaghetti because I didn’t have a pot that was big enough to cook full-length spaghetti. It doesn’t twirl as well and is messier. I usually would just make a smaller shaped pasta.

[quote] I'm sure they do- I don't shop at the Dollar Store.

Fancy!

[quote]There is a scene where Rachel brings a pasta dish to bed for she and Mark to share.

Oh, dear.

I've spent time working in four different Italian regions, and never saw anyone use a spoon at the table, in a restaurant or street cafe or private residence, for the pasta course.

It’s a low class American thing.

R178, me either and I manage to eat without splattering on my clothes as well.

The only twirling DL will tolerate is Fallon Carrington's.

such bitches on here