Thoughts on breaking spaghetti prior to cooking

[vitauta]

old thread alert, hello! to break pasta before cooking spaghetti or to leave it whole--this was the question at hand. it was an interesting topic with many interesting and divergent views being expressed. i came away from this discussion with one lingering question still on my mind, still begging for resolution.

my question is this: what is at the core of the question of broken vs. unbroken pasta that makes it such a vital and emotionally divisive matter? why is the practice of breaking pasta into one, two, or many pieces seen by some an almost blasphemous act--described variously as ignorant, contemptible, boorish, disrespectful, etc., etc...

i fully expected people to be all over the place on this topic, for a myriad of reasons, as we usually tend to be. what i wasn't at all prepared for, however, was the intensity of the objections to pasta breaking expressed in many cases, and the unexpected forceful push back at what seemed to me a simple matter of a rather innocuous personal preference.

i am seriously looking for answers, here. i am not looking for another battle over which way pasta should be cooked or consumed. i welcome all of your thoughts....

 

[Andy M.]

In my opinion, which is how every post here should begin, the reason for the debate is "That's the way the do it in Italy".

...or "That's the way my mama did it."

 

[vitauta]

i agree that on some level culture is at the basis of most of the preferences we form through life. we are all steeped in our cultures. but, i don't feel the need to insist that pirogies be made my way only, or that pirogies made by other people in different countries from mine are therefore unauthentic, undesirable or somehow inferior to mine.

 

[Addie]

Unforunately, TV chefs have had a major influence on our choice of cooking ethnic foods. You often will here statements saying " In Italy, they never ...." "In France they always ...." They make it sound that if you don't do it 'that' way, you dish will fail. Which ever way the individual does it, is the right way. If you are allergic to one of the ingredients, you omit it. That doesn't make the dish the wrong way to make it. It is just your way. We see there dish come out perfect. What we forget is that in spite of the fact that the show is only 30 minutes long, they swap out foods that take longer than the show allows. So we expect the recipe that we have followed faithfully, to come out the same way in the same time.

Some pastas take longer to cook than others. Angel Hair cooks in just a matter of a couple of minutes. Whereas bucatinni can take as long as twenty minutes. So if breaking it up makes it cook quicker, we break it up. That doesn't make it wrong, just different.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Some believe their "Authenticity" is the only way to go and they are going to defend it, no matter what.

 

[pacanis]

I grew up eating unbroken spaghetti. Even the spaghetti I ordered in a restaurant was never broken. I would then make two or three cuts with a knife through it. Obviously it could never be broken when cooking, even by me, because then my habitual 2-3 slices through the pile of pasta would render it too small.

I have since outgrown that. Now I twirl the pieces whole, in their entirety. Now I will drag out one of my large pots just to be able to cook it whole and not have to stand there and wait for the bottom to soften so I can push the rest in.

Maybe I should post this under quirks, too.

 

[Oldvine]

However it fits in the pot is how it is in our kitchen since the cook is the boss.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

You're right Oldvine, the cook IS the boss!

The "right" way is YOUR way no matter who YOU are. You shouldn't worry about what a TV Chef or a restaurant chef or a social forum chef tells you is right or wrong, what works in your kitchen and for your family is what is important. I like wider pastas because they collect more sauce, pappardelle being my favorite. Pappardelle tends to be shorter so they don't get broken. That doesn't mean I'm above cooking farfalle or rotini to catch even more sauce, it just means that I want to collect more sauce! And believe me, you don't need to break farfalle or rotini! Plus, any extra of either of those can be set aside for a "macaroni" salad. Come to think of it, I never use macaroni in a macaroni salad...

 

[buckytom]

for me, it's the size of the pot that i grab.

when time allows, i'll go for a pot big enough to accomodate enough water for long pasta.

i rarely have such a luxury with time.

so, long pasta gets cracked in half more often than not.

in volume on a plate and on a fork, there's so little difference that it almost couldn't matter any less.

who the hell eats only a couple of strands of pasta to really care?

 

[CarolPa]

Although I don't condone curling spaghetti with fork and spoon, you hold your fork in your dominant hand and spoon in subdominent hand. There is no problem with the knife because you don't need it when eating spaghetti.

Yet that was part of my post above. If the meatballs are too large you need to use knife and fork to cut them into bite size. Then you shift the fork from subdominant hand to dominant hand to pick up spaghetti and meatball and consume it. Much easier if there is no knife required and then your dominant hand can handle all the action forking the meatball and spaghetti into your mouth.

Your subdominant hand can be used for gesturing or guzzling.

I am reviving an old thread and I have a question for you. When I get meatballs that are too big for one bite I just cut them with my fork. Is that wrong? They aren't so hard that you actually need a knife, but maybe cutting with a fork is bad manners. I like to cut all meatballs at least in half, even the little ones. Then I twirl some spaghetti around my fork, stick the tines of the fork in a piece of meatball, and get spaghetti and meatball in one bite.

 

[CraigC]

I am reviving an old thread and I have a question for you. When I get meatballs that are too big for one bite I just cut them with my fork. Is that wrong? They aren't so hard that you actually need a knife, but maybe cutting with a fork is bad manners. I like to cut all meatballs at least in half, even the little ones. Then I twirl some spaghetti around my fork, stick the tines of the fork in a piece of meatball, and get spaghetti and meatball in one bite.

If you need a knife to cut a meatball, I'd be worried for my teeth eating said meatball. Besides, I think most Italians would serve the pasta and sauce as a separate course from the meatballs.

 

[Mad Cook]

I am reviving an old thread and I have a question for you. When I get meatballs that are too big for one bite I just cut them with my fork. Is that wrong? They aren't so hard that you actually need a knife, but maybe cutting with a fork is bad manners. I like to cut all meatballs at least in half, even the little ones. Then I twirl some spaghetti around my fork, stick the tines of the fork in a piece of meatball, and get spaghetti and meatball in one bite.

If you are at home without an audience and if your partner doesn't mind you can eat your spaghetti and meat balls with your fingers if you like. If you're in a restaurant it's unlikely you'll have a knife for the pasta course but in any case (on my side of the pond, at least) so it's considered perfectly good manners to cut your meat ball with your fork. In Italian restaurants over here, in my experience, the waiter often takes away the knife and leaves you a spoon and fork if you choose pasta.

Am I right in thinking that in America you cut up your food and then transfer fork to right hand and scoop? (Source=Old black and white film where the American secret agent in France was given away because the Gestapo saw him do this) whereas we cut as we go so have knife in right hand and fork in left with points pointing down throughout the meal. Would a Brit in America be considered uncouth for doing it like this?

Aren't good manners and perceptions thereof odd.

 

[Mad Cook]

If you need a knife to cut a meatball, I'd be worried for my teeth eating said meatball. Besides, I think most Italians would serve the pasta and sauce as a separate course from the meatballs.

Really? My elderly Italian neighbour at my old house used to serve the lot together.

 

[CraigC]

Really? My elderly Italian neighbour at my old house used to serve the lot together.

We were always served the meat and pasta courses separately during our meals in Italy. The exception seemed to be seafood pasta and pasta that had pancetta or guanciale in them.

Most Sunday Gravy is served with the sauce and pasta as a separate course from the meats cooked in the gravy. The sausages, meatballs and braciole and/or pork were removed from the gravy and served.

 

[Mad Cook]

old thread alert, hello! to break pasta before cooking spaghetti or to leave it whole--this was the question at hand. it was an interesting topic with many interesting and divergent views being expressed. i came away from this discussion with one lingering question still on my mind, still begging for resolution.

my question is this: what is at the core of the question of broken vs. unbroken pasta that makes it such a vital and emotionally divisive matter? why is the practice of breaking pasta into one, two, or many pieces seen by some an almost blasphemous act--described variously as ignorant, contemptible, boorish, disrespectful, etc., etc...

i fully expected people to be all over the place on this topic, for a myriad of reasons, as we usually tend to be. what i wasn't at all prepared for, however, was the intensity of the objections to pasta breaking expressed in many cases, and the unexpected forceful push back at what seemed to me a simple matter of a rather innocuous personal preference.

i am seriously looking for answers, here. i am not looking for another battle over which way pasta should be cooked or consumed. i welcome all of your thoughts....

I haven't read the whole thread as I was losing the will to live but doesn't it depend on how small you are breaking it? If it's the 3 foot long sort of spaghetti I break it in half, purely for practical reasons but if you chop it up into very short pieces it falls of your fork.

Anyway, isn't it good for children to learn to eat like grown ups? Why let them learn one way and then have to unlearn it later. IIRC, as a little girl I learned to twirl spag with a spoon and fork at an early age then when I'd mastered that I graduated to using just a fork against the curve of the dishor plate, which is what I do now. Is it "correct"? No idea but it works.

 

[GotGarlic]

I am reviving an old thread and I have a question for you. When I get meatballs that are too big for one bite I just cut them with my fork. Is that wrong? They aren't so hard that you actually need a knife, but maybe cutting with a fork is bad manners. I like to cut all meatballs at least in half, even the little ones. Then I twirl some spaghetti around my fork, stick the tines of the fork in a piece of meatball, and get spaghetti and meatball in one bite.

I don't think there's anything wrong or impolite about doing that, and not just because I do it Miss Manners would say that anyone who said something to you about it was displaying bad manners by making you feel bad.

 

[Mad Cook]

We were always served the meat and pasta courses separately during our meals in Italy. The exception seemed to be seafood pasta and pasta that had pancetta or guanciale in them.

Most Sunday Gravy is served with the sauce and pasta as a separate course from the meats cooked in the gravy. The sausages, meatballs and braciole and/or pork were removed from the gravy and served.

Mrs Susca was quite old and had lived here since 1946 so probably she had let things slide

 

[Mad Cook]

I don't think there's anything wrong or impolite about doing that, and not just because I do it Miss Manners would say that anyone who said something to you about it was displaying bad manners by making you feel bad.

Exactly so.

 

[GotGarlic]

Am I right in thinking that in America you cut up your food and then transfer fork to right hand and scoop? (Source=Old black and white film where the American secret agent in France was given away because the Gestapo saw him do this) whereas we cut as we go so have knife in right hand and fork in left with points pointing down throughout the meal. Would a Brit in America be considered uncouth for doing it like this?

Aren't good manners and perceptions thereof odd.

I'm left-handed and I don't really pay attention to how others eat unless it's something really unusual. I remember my mom saying that the Continental way of eating is much more efficient because you're not constantly switching utensils around (she and my dad lived in Germany for 2 years when I was a small child). From that, I started using my knife more to help pick up the food. A lot of Americans use a finger to hold food that is pushed to the side of the plate; I find that a bit uncouth.

We had a Danish exchange student once who I think was a little OCD about it. I noticed that he would cut and shape his food into little rectangles that fit perfectly on the fork. He even ate a burger with a knife and fork.

 

[Mad Cook]

Going off at a tangent - when boiling pasta do you add oil to the cooking water or not.

I always used to because the books I'd read and the odd television programme said I should but the aforementioned Mrs Susca laughed at me when she came into my kitchen and caught me at it. Her theory was that if you have a goodly supply of boiling water in the pan in the first place you don't need oil. I tried it without found she was right so haven't done it since but there have been a number of times on FN lately when the demonstrators have insisted that with oil is the only way to go.