EATING SPAGHETTI

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yflTu150QZw

THE HORRIBLE TRUTH ABOUT SPAGHETTI

AAAARRGH! I overate and now I feel like jumping off a cliff just to end the pain. I blame it on
demon spaghetti.

I posted some spaghetti recipes a few days ago, and that started my mouth watering. It occurred to me that since I'd just watched a bunch of videos on the subject, and since I had the all the recipes that commenters sent in, that I could probably make a decent pot of spaghetti this very day. Today I spent hours shopping and cooking, and I just finished eating what I cooked. My conclusion? It was by far the best spaghetti I ever had, but......I'm sorry to say...it was disappointing.

It was disappointing because spaghetti itself is disappointing. The American style, meat-mixed-in-the-sauce spaghetti can be good, and in the right hands it can be very good, but it can never be great. Nothing that's meant to be wolfed down then sit in your stomach like a brick for hours can ever aspire to greatness.

I know what you're thinking, that it's my own fault if I overate, but that's only half true. The fact is that spaghetti is designed to be overeaten. Something about the chemistry of the thing actually promotes overeating. Using better ingredients only makes overeating more likely.

I have such a stomach ache! I can hardly type!

From this experience I learned that Italians were probably right about meatballs. Separating the meat from the sauce gives makes for more contrast in the flavors, and likely prolongs the meal so you don't feel so drowsy and heavy in the stomach afterwards. Next time I make spaghetti, I'll go the meatball route.

Aaaargh! Now I'm gonna sack out on the couch!

BTW, here's the way I made it: I like mushrooms, so I started by frying a few in olive oil, garlic and a little bacon fat. I only half cooked them, figuring that I'd let them cook the rest of the way when I put them in the sauce. I now regard this as a mistake. When added too early the mushrooms are overwhelmed by the sauce and you don't even taste them.

I cooked up some Italian sausage in olive oil and garlic and added lots of cabernet and port. Most of it evaporated and had only a small impact on the flavor. Next time I'll use only port and add it when the sauce is nearly finished.

When the meat was more than half done I added a sauce of fresh, skinned Italian tomatoes (according to a commenter, they're out of season and are therefore inferior to the canned variety), and canned crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Also in the sauce: the mushrooms I talked about earlier, onion, parmesan, green pepper, garlic and garlic powder, salt, ground pepper, oregano and basil. I would have added fennel if I'd had it.

I let it simmer for about 45 minutes. When it still seemed too thin, I thickened it with another small can of tomato paste, which was a mistake because the finished sauce tasted pastey. Later, when I was finished, I realized that I'd never added water. The only liquids were wine and the crushed tomato fluid. I should have added some water and let it simmer longer.

I wish I'd combined the Italian sausage with some ground beef or pork. The sausage was delicious but needed something to balance it out.

In spite of my mistakes the sauce still tasted very good, so I feel like I gave the meat sauce-style of spaghetti a fair trial. I still like spaghetti a whole lot, but I've been won over to the meatball theory.

BTW: This blog was featured on Boing Boing a couple of days ago. Many thanks to Steve Worth for the kind words!

THE BEST WAY TO MAKE SPAGHETTI

Hmmmm. That photo (above) doesn't seem to fit here. I was trying to look like Julia Childs, but I think I ended up being Jerry Lewis in drag. Oh, well....

Anyway, to get to the subject at hand: I don't know much about spaghetti, so I thought I'd educate myself by watching some YouTube videos on the subject. Big mistake! It's pretty clear that most people on YouTube don't know how to make this dish. Not that I do.



Take the one above for example. Can you believe this woman? In the first minute of the video (I don't recommend watching more than that) she shows us the ingredients and they're all cans! She lovingly describes her can opener which no doubt has high-tech carbon fiber and titanium handles and hangs from a silver chain. Almost all the YouTube spaghetti recipes are like that! People love their canned goods! One guy ecstatically kissed his finger tips and said "Bellissimo" every time he opened a new can.  The only top-notch chef I saw seemed bored with the subject.

*Sigh!* I guess the people who know what they're doing just aren't interested in low-rent dishes like spaghetti. Anyway, I thought I'd put up a couple of the least offensive videos, just so you get a feeling for what the thinking is on this subject.

To save time I eliminated from consideration all recipes by old-world Italians. Spaghetti might have begun in Italy but it was perfected by Italian Americans, who alone know to how to make it right.  And I learned not to trust grandmothers...they work out of cans, just like everyone else. I also eliminated recipes by caterers. They make the dish the cheapest way possible. They're into volume, not quality.  Lastly, I eliminated all diet recipes. I eat dietetic foods most of the time, but when I take the time to cook something really special I want maximum flavor, even if I keel over dead afterwards.

So, after eliminating the can people, the cheapskate caterers and the diet fanatics, who's left? Well, there's a couple (below). Neither is perfect, but they're the best I could find. See what you think.



Boy, does this guy pour on the wine! He pours in a bunch, then uses it liberally to clean out 3 tomato cans (emptying the wine-soaked residues into the pan), then takes a woeful look at the pan and adds most of the rest of the bottle. His family seemed to like the result, though they were probably crocked.  Even so, he seems to have made a decent canned spaghetti, and has an appealing personality.

One of his commenters suggested adding veal, which sounds right.



This recipe (above) is made by a restaurant owner who appears to do it right. I had to deduct points, though, because he doesn't discuss the sauce. He's Italian American, and they like to keep their sauce recipes secret.

Like most IAs he disdains soupy anglo meat sauces and prefers to keep the sauce and meat seperate. In other words, he prefers "spaghetti and meatballs." The meatball meat is usually made with additions like milk, bell peppers, breadcrumbs and eggs.

That's all I have to say for now. Take a look at the olive and anchove recipe submitted by Buzz in the comments, Jorge's Marty Scorcese recipe, and the bizarre "Milton Glaser" recipe submitted by Hans Flagon. Was Glaser serious about that?