This post is all about the proper way to eat spaghetti, but a little agricultural background (above) might be in order. Most people believe that spaghetti is made from wheat flour, but that's not true. As you can see in the video above, spaghetti is grown on spaghetti trees.
Being a product of trees, spaghetti has weight.
It's bottom heavy.
Don't try eating it with a spoon.
It'll just slide off.
So, what do you do?
The answer: use a fork. It's fun to spear things. And that takes us to the next question which is, what do you do with those unwieldy, long strands?
Cutting them up works, but that wouldn't be playing the game.
Besides, you can't slurp spaghetti when it's all chopped up. What's the use of eating spaghetti if you can't slurp it?
Most people retain the long noodles and just wrap them around the fork.
That's not an ideal solution because it produces a big ball that's hard to fit into the mouth. You can dislocate your jaw that way.
So, how are we to eat this stuff?
The best way is to do what kids do. Treat spaghetti like a finger food. Grab a bunch, hold it above your head, and lower it into your mouth. Of course, there's a right way and a wrong way. The kid above does it artlessly. Good Grief! He's actually chewing the noodles!
This kid, on the other hand, does it right. The noodles are held straight above the mouth and lowered in such a way that the final strand is slurped, not chewed.
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That's all I have to say about spaghetti but you might be curious to know more about other tree-grown agricultural items. Here's a link to a site that describes the problems experienced by marshmallow farmers:
There's a fabulous scene in the Japanese film "Tampopo" in which the young women are being educated as to the correct way to eat spaghetti in the Western manner. If you haven't already seen this film, you have a treat in store!
ReplyDeleteInvisibules: I LOVE that movie! For me it's about the pursuit of excellence and the assertion that people who do that will attract like-minded people who will help them.
ReplyDeleteA friend who saw the film said I was reading that message into it, and that it's only a bawdy comedy. I don't think that's the case but I'd like to see it again so I can be sure.
I think you are both right - as with much top quality art there's more than one message. It's one of my all-time favourite films, I must have seen it a dozen times: it always makes me laugh and think - a winning combination!
ReplyDelete