“Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner.”
– Sophia Loren
Ten thoughts about spaghetti.
1. In the early 1960’s spaghetti was the only food I ate as a child with any joy. My mother heated up the jarred Ragu red sauce with a whole clove of garlic floating in it for five minutes, and then carefully removed the dangerous herb. I insisted on having a big glass of milk with my spaghetti – the only time I agreed to drink milk. It didn’t exactly taste great with the red sauce, but that’s the way I was.
2. When my mother cooked spaghetti she grabbed a strand of the almost cooked pasta, and threw it up at the ceiling. If it stuck the pasta was done. For years the kitchen ceiling was lined with bits of dried up pasta. Sometimes I wonder if they’re still up there.
3. When meatballs were served with the spaghetti my family always sang the song, “On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.” Our meatballs never rolled off the table, or under a bush. But if I didn’t eat my meatballs fast enough my brother reached over the table and ate them for me.
4. My mother only cooked Ronzoni pasta, a brand bought at the Foodtown Supermarket – the place where some of my friends got their first jobs, a place I refused to work. I wasn’t going to punch any time card. I was going to be a famous writer and publish a book before I turned thirty.
5. When I ate “real” Italian food on my first trip into Little Italy in lower Manhattan I found out what I’d been missing.
6. I learned to eat slower once my brother moved out.
7. I never did work at Foodtown.
8. I lasted half a day at my one job with a time card. I took some doughnuts with me when I left and I never punched out.
9. Spaghetti is still my favorite food, but I hardly ever eat it because of the carbs and gluten.
10. I never became a famous writer and I never published a book – but there’s still time.
