“ Spooning Spaghetti ”

Are we more Italian if we use a spoon to roll pasta?
Are all Italians born “with a silver spoon in their left hand?”
It’s always nice to have a spoon handy… Or is it?

If you find yourself doing things to impress the “mamma mia mother in-law” at the table, using a spoon to roll your spaghetti can some times work against you when in the company of “true Italian blood”.

A lot of Italians grow up learning how to roll pasta using the support of a spoon. A day wouldn’t go by without that golden crusty Italian bread dad would always place on the kitchen table. Before dinner, he would break the tips on both ends about 4 fingers deep; remove the mule from the center, leaving a crusted hollow bread cone.
This became our “eatable spoon” for practicing how to roll. It wasn’t difficult once we got the hang of it-pick up a couple strings of pasta, place the fork inside the bread cone and start rolling-messy of course-but fun.
Talk about saving the best for last. It was a must to finish the meal in order to savor that tomato sauce soaked bread cone at
the end …yumm!
Without knowing it-this technique would teach two “important musts” if we were going to master the pasta rolling in order to hand it down to the next generation.
The first- getting just the right amount of spaghetti on the fork. If the pasta would over flow the bread cone/spoon-it would over flow the mouth…put it back in the dish and start all over again. The second was balance. Using the cone/spoon would help with balancing the fork while the actual rolling was going on.

Should you attack your meal directly from the bowl, push the pasta to one side allowing a little free space for rolling. Be sure to weave 3-4 strands on the fork and move it toward the “plate work area”. Begin rolling with an occasional soft pull in an upward motion to help separate the strands- and you will never have to worry about lifting 90% of the pasta in one forkful.
Whether you choose the bread cone, spoon or workspace on your dish, what really scores the points-and keeps mamma from rolling her eyes in pops direction-depends on the amount of pasta that remains around the fork. Never go beyond a mouthful-who needs to hear "mamma mia" when we could have "now thats Italian" !


Chef Guerrieri