eating spaghetti

[moose]

Just seen this - which apparently makes it easier to eat than off a plate
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...iracle-of-physics-genius-food-delivery-system

 

[Leafster]

You'd think at my age I would have perfected this but even with a fork and spoon I still manage to get the sauce on my face and anything nearby.

Perhaps, it's 'cos I try to load up too much in one go.

 

[Orang Utan]

breakers and cutters be damned

 

[Orang Utan]

getting sauce on one's face isn't a bad thing.

 

[Orang Utan]

fnaaar

 

[Epona]

Twirling, fork only. A spoon is more stuff to be washed up after.

 

[lizzieloo]

Fork and spoon twirl, leave twirl in spoon, fork a bit of bol on top and into mouth - perfect linguini (not spaghetti) / sauce ratio.

No cheese, that's far too indulgent

 

[dessiato]

Couple of twirls is all it takes.

 

[spanglechick]

Fork spoon method makes that horrific metallic scritching noise, I've just remembered.

 

[Thimble Queen]

Fork mostly. Cut it up if I need to jam it in as quick as poss.

 

[Greebo]

You'd think at my age I would have perfected this but even with a fork and spoon I still manage to get the sauce on my face and anything nearby.

Perhaps, it's 'cos I try to load up too much in one go.

AFAIK tucking a serviette or napkin into your neckline to protect your clothes from splashes is socially okay when it comes to eating things like pasta, whose stains are really bad for clothes.

 

[George & Bill]

AFAIK tucking a serviette or napkin into your neckline to protect your clothes from splashes is socially okay when it comes to eating things like pasta, whose stains are really bad for clothes.

If you are wearing your most glamorous finery then there is nothing wrong with asking for a black bin liner, which you then make a hole in the top of and place over your neck.

 

[Greebo]

If you are wearing your most glamorous finery then there is nothing wrong with asking for a black bin liner, which you then make a hole in the top of and place over your neck.

Fuck off sweetie, that's not what I said.

 

[George & Bill]

Noodle / pasta slurping is disgusting.

Very different etiquette between noodle and pasta. Eating spaghetti, it's definitely the done thing to bite off any parts protruding from the mouth, and let them fall to the plate. In most noodle-eating circles, one should create a fierce esophageal vacuum until any recalcitrant strands have been ingested.

 

[George & Bill]

Fuck off sweetie, that's not what I said.

Why the aggression? I didn't say it was what you said, I was simply furnishing further information, as done in the course of such exchanges.

 

[Leafster]

AFAIK tucking a serviette or napkin into your neckline to protect your clothes from splashes is socially okay when it comes to eating things like pasta, whose stains are really bad for clothes.

Perhaps I should have thought of that on Tuesday when I had lunch with a client. It was fusilli rather than spaghetti but it wasn't until I got home I realised I had sauce on my shirt.

 

[Greebo]

Why the aggression? <snip>

Really bad week/month/quarter/year - deal with it.

Explanation as statement of fact, not a request for sympathy.

 

[George & Bill]

Really bad week/month/quarter/year - deal with it.

People being, briefly, needlessly aggressive on the internet doesn't, in my world, even qualify as something to 'deal with', to be honest.

 

[dilute micro]

 

[gosub]

Learnt a cooking instruction years back from the the Sweeney's Jack Reagan "how do you know when it's done? Keep throwing it against the wall til it sticks."
Was ages before I realised that was just a policing metaphor

 

[Epona]

AFAIK tucking a serviette or napkin into your neckline to protect your clothes from splashes is socially okay when it comes to eating things like pasta, whose stains are really bad for clothes.

You are absolutely right - it's mostly the middle classes developing social conventions that they 'think' are upper class that account for the sort of bullshit that think it is rude to tuck a napkin down your front. Working class and ruling class have no such issue with protecting their clothing - or with putting their elbows on the table - a lot of these 'rules' are from people trying to be upwardly mobile and thinking they can get there by changing their behaviour at a dinner party.

The rest of us do not give a fuck.

 

[Greebo]

Learnt a cooking instruction years back from the the Sweeney's Jack Reagan "how do you know when it's done? Keep throwing it against the wall til it sticks."
Was ages before I realised that was just a policing metaphor

It isn't (well, maybe it was in the case of the Sweeney), it really was the doneness test for spaghetti when the British palate was first exposed to it (and pasta wasn't left al dente but cooked until soft right the way through). My mum boiled every type of pasta until only just *this* side of disintegrating.

OTOH I've got a 1980s edtion of "cooking in a bedsitter" which says to fish out a strand and pinch it in half with your thumbnail - if you can see a tiny trace of flour in the middle, it's ready.

 

[Epona]

It isn't (well, maybe it was in the case of the Sweeney), it really was the doneness test for spaghetti when the British palate was first exposed to it (and pasta wasn't left al dente but cooked until soft right the way through). My mum boiled every type of pasta until only just *this* side of disintegrating.

I think my parents (who had their childhoods during post-war food rationing) adhere to this line of thinking. Apart from pasta was viewed as quite exotic in our household when I was growing up. One of the reasons I learned to cook at a young age

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I think my parents (who had their childhoods during post-war food rationing) adhere to this line of thinking. Apart from pasta was viewed as quite exotic in our household when I was growing up. One of the reasons I learned to cook at a young age

Actually, I don't think I had pasta until I was in my later teens when I went shopping for myself - like your parent, mine grew up in the same era and so it was a newfangled foreign thing to be avoided. Ditto garlic and loads of other stuff that I only discovered once I'd left home.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

You'd think at my age I would have perfected this but even with a fork and spoon I still manage to get the sauce on my face and anything nearby.

Perhaps, it's 'cos I try to load up too much in one go.

If you must avoid cutting it up or snapping it before cooking, the way to eat it is to get some on a fork, place your face right above* the food and inhale it. Less mess that way, although perhaps not a recommended approach on a date.

* so your nose almost touches the food.

 

[tufty79]

Actually, I don't think I had pasta until I was in my later teens when I went shopping for myself - like your parent, mine grew up in the same era and so it was a newfangled foreign thing to be avoided. Ditto garlic and loads of other stuff that I only discovered once I'd left home.

Likewise.
E2a i don't think i had curry til after i moved out either. I grew up in Bradford

 

[Greebo]

If you must avoid cutting it up or snapping it before cooking, the way to eat it is to get some on a fork, place your face right above* the food and inhale it. Less mess that way, although perhaps not a recommended approach on a date.

* so your nose almost touches the food.

It helps if you eat the pasta from a bowl, not a plate, as the sides help you to load up the fork. As for messy eating on a date, how can I put this? If you're worried about slurping or a few food splashes, gods help you when you realise what you look and sound like during the vinegar strokes.

 

[Epona]

Actually, I don't think I had pasta until I was in my later teens when I went shopping for myself - like your parent, mine grew up in the same era and so it was a newfangled foreign thing to be avoided. Ditto garlic and loads of other stuff that I only discovered once I'd left home.

Also a lot of stuff (especially if you didn't live in a town with a diverse community and goods imported to cater for that market) simply wasn't available before the advent of the hypermarket and a flush of cookery shows on TV that fueled demand.

Fresh bell peppers were not commonly or regularly stocked by supermarkets until about the mid 80s.

First time I tried to cook a recipe that required peppers (this would have been around 1981-ish, and the recipe came from a cookery book with the term "Foreign Foods" in the title) I had to look in the "World Foods" aisle of the new out of town hypermarket and buy an imported tin of canned peppers. This is utterly unthinkable today

 

[andysays]

I arrange it into words and then eat the pieces in order with a fork