Cut Pasta In Italy?

Do Italians use spoons to eat pasta?

May 19, 1982 Credit. The New York Times Archives See the article in its original context from May 19, 1982, Section C, Page 11 Buy Reprints TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.

To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. ”Most restaurants (and hostesses) that feature pasta provide guests with a large spoon as well as the knife and fork.

The fork is used to spear a few strands of spaghetti, the tips are placed against the spoon, which is held on its side, in the left hand, and the fork is twirled, wrapping the spaghetti around itself as it turns. If no spoon is provided, the tips of the fork may be rested against the curve of the plate.” ”The New Emily Post’s Etiquette,” Elizabeth L.

Post, 1975 By CRAIG CLAIBORNE WITH America in the throes of what has been called the ”pastarization of the nation,” when enthusiasm for fusilli and fettuccine, ziti and spaghetti is at an all-time high, it may be time to pause to examine what is right and what is wrong with various techniques for cooking and eating pasta.

For example, is it proper, as Emily Post says, to twirl spaghetti against a spoon? Or, as she also says, with the tips of the fork resting against the curve of the plate? Should bread be served with pasta, another starch? Is it correct to sprinkle cheese on pasta with seafood sauce? When cheese is in order, what is the best cheese? Should strands of long pasta be broken before being tossed into the pot? The owners of three of the best-known Italian restaurants in Manhattan recently convened to feast on pasta and discuss just how and with what it should be eaten.

The diners were Adi Giovanetti, proprietor of Il Nido, and his wife, Rosanna; Sirio Maccioni, owner of Le Cirque, and his wife, Egi, and Luigi Nanni, proprietor and chef of both Nanni’s and Il Valetto. The elflike Mr. Nanni cooked, preparing two pastas with sauces, one of which contained Fontina cheese and wild field mushrooms (cultivated mushrooms, he said, could be substituted), and a salsa alla militare or military sauce made with tomatoes, fresh basil and dried hot pepper.

As the meal progressed the discussion became Mount Etna-like in its eruptions. Cheese with seafood pasta? Never! Well, maybe. Both Mr. Giovanetti and Mr. Nanni declared vehemently that cheese with seafood would be as much of a sacrilege as pouring ketchup over carpaccio.

Do Italians put oil in the water?

I’m not saying you should get in an argument with your Italian grandmother about whether or not you should add olive oil to pasta water, but I am saying that she would win. For some reason, it has become relatively common knowledge in the US that the one thing you should always do when boiling water for pasta is drizzle in olive oil to prevent the pasta from sticking.

• And it’s just downright wrong — at least, according to Italians.
• The truth is that olive oil and pasta are a match made in heaven, but only once the pasta is cooked.
• Adding the oil to the boiling water before you pour in the pasta or drizzling it on top as the pasta is boiling away does not do it any favors.

In fact, adding olive oil can ultimately harm the finished dish because it can prevent the sauce from clinging to the pasta. The whole point of saving pasta water is that the starchy substance helps pasta cling to its sauce, and the slickness of olive oil can interfere.

• Ask any chef or Italian cook, and they’ll back me up.
• Better yet, experience it firsthand like I did.
• If you find yourself in Italy — I recently traveled to Verona to learn about Giovanni Rana — pay attention to the way your pasta is cooked.
• No matter if it’s spaghetti or ravioli (somehow it’s more commonly believed that filled pastas need oil in particular), you won’t find anyone pouring olive oil into the pot.

Even one of Lidia Bastianich’s pasta-cooking tips is that you shouldn’t add olive oil to the water, and what she says is the Italian bible, people. Lidia has been quoted saying, “Do not — I repeat, do not — add oil to your pasta cooking water ! And that’s an order!” So the next time you’re looking forward to cooking up a batch of fresh pasta, or even dried, do yourself a favor and break out the good olive oil,

What is considered rude in Italy?

If you read reviews of Italy, you will find that Italians are regarded as either very friendly and helpful or the opposite. Wherever you travel, there is always the possibility of meeting the local curmudgeon, but generally Italians are only rude to people who have offended them.

Here are some tips to avoid giving offence. If you have had a bad experience, this might explain why! 1) Italy is one of the world’s most visited countries and tourism is important for it. In some particular cities and spots you’re likely to see just tourists and tourist-oriented realities around you, as if you were in a big resort.

However, never forget that Italy is a country like all countries, with some 60,000,000 residents, its life and is activity, which can’t absolutely be reduced to tourism. Like everywhere else, tourists are guests, not the focus of attention. Don’t assume that every resident is a tourist information employee and don’t expect that anyone you meet in the street should solve your problems or help you with your itineraries.

1. Lots of them might be in a hurry or in a bad mood, or have something important to do, exactly as you when you are home.
2. Some narrow streets or some ancient buildings that you may find delightfully quaint are in fact lived in and worked in, so pay attention not to be in the way looking around or taking pictures.2) Learn some Italian.

You do not need to be fluent in the language (although it helps!). Being able to say “Hello”, “Goodbye”, “Please” and “Thank you” will put you up one place in the respect scale; anyway, don’t think it is enough; saying a long a complex speech in fluent English and adding “per favore” or “grazie” can’t help anyone to understand your message and comes to sound patronising.

Italian grammar is not easy, but learning some dozen words and making oneself understood saying isolate words is fairly easy. If you are English mother tongue, keep in mind you had big luck, but don’t take advantage of it. The knowledge of English is spread, not mandatory. If you absolutely want to speak English, always ask: “Parla inglese?” (or even in English “Do you speak English?”) and wait for an answer, do not just start speaking English at people.

Anyway, when you speak English with a local you’d better use basic words and expressions and articulate well. Remember that the Italian language has various and very different accents changing in every area; the one people are accostumed to hear in movies is mostly a stereotype and (a much lighter version of it) can only be heard in some parts of the Deep South.

• If you stay in Rome for a few days and you think you can finally catch some Italian words, don’t be discouraged when later in Venice or Naples you won’t be able to: just give yourself sometime to get accostumed to that area peculiar accent! 3) Do not be loud in English.
• Most Italians, despite the stereotype, aren’t that loud and therefore don’t like vulgar people; tourists are guests, and are expected to behave politely.

In spite of another stereotype, Italians never sing to themselves and usually regard it as total queerness.

Why is there no chicken in Italy?

The tradition is simply that chicken is not as significant a part of Italian cuisine as of others (such as my own native British cuisine). As we all know, Italian food is very traditional still.

Is it rude to not finish food in Italy?

If you are invited to someone’s home – Within a family setting, women usually look after the cooking, although sharing of household tasks has been changing in recent years in Italy as well as globally. Within a restaurant setting a chef is still prevalently a male profession.

As a general rule, the host when you are invited to someone’s home in Italy is usually a woman, and usually over the age of 45 or 50, mainly because there has been a shift in the younger generations to become more career focussed, and so younger people do not fit the stereotype of the typical Italian host as much.

Some Italian hosts, especially in southern Italy, can be quite generous with their portions, and usually ask the guest throughout the meal if they would like more and can be very insistent about guests having second servings. I interviewed a lady in her seventies, who is from Sicily, around Italian food culture and this is what she said: In certain circumstances, by being excessively attentive to their guests (people in southern cultures) may become intrusive.

There is a popular Italian TV series called Don Matteo where the protagonist, who is the town priest, is sometimes invited to his friends’ home, a couple in their mid forties. The wife, who is originally from Sicily, not only serves very large portions of food, but is also insistent in constantly offering more to Don Matteo.

This shows how southern Italian hosts are seen as overly caring by Italians themselves, and this can be an object of comedy. Pink Italian tea-towel picturing an Italian mum and a sign saying “mum’s cooking is the best” There may be circumstances, depending on where you are in Italy, when you might be invited to help yourself more than once to the same course. If you are offered second servings, it is absolutely fine to decline.

How is pasta eaten in Italy?

May 19, 1982 Credit. The New York Times Archives See the article in its original context from May 19, 1982, Section C, Page 11 Buy Reprints TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.

To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. ”Most restaurants (and hostesses) that feature pasta provide guests with a large spoon as well as the knife and fork.

The fork is used to spear a few strands of spaghetti, the tips are placed against the spoon, which is held on its side, in the left hand, and the fork is twirled, wrapping the spaghetti around itself as it turns. If no spoon is provided, the tips of the fork may be rested against the curve of the plate.” ”The New Emily Post’s Etiquette,” Elizabeth L.

Post, 1975 By CRAIG CLAIBORNE WITH America in the throes of what has been called the ”pastarization of the nation,” when enthusiasm for fusilli and fettuccine, ziti and spaghetti is at an all-time high, it may be time to pause to examine what is right and what is wrong with various techniques for cooking and eating pasta.

For example, is it proper, as Emily Post says, to twirl spaghetti against a spoon? Or, as she also says, with the tips of the fork resting against the curve of the plate? Should bread be served with pasta, another starch? Is it correct to sprinkle cheese on pasta with seafood sauce? When cheese is in order, what is the best cheese? Should strands of long pasta be broken before being tossed into the pot? The owners of three of the best-known Italian restaurants in Manhattan recently convened to feast on pasta and discuss just how and with what it should be eaten.

1. The diners were Adi Giovanetti, proprietor of Il Nido, and his wife, Rosanna; Sirio Maccioni, owner of Le Cirque, and his wife, Egi, and Luigi Nanni, proprietor and chef of both Nanni’s and Il Valetto.
2. The elflike Mr.
3. Nanni cooked, preparing two pastas with sauces, one of which contained Fontina cheese and wild field mushrooms (cultivated mushrooms, he said, could be substituted), and a salsa alla militare or military sauce made with tomatoes, fresh basil and dried hot pepper.

As the meal progressed the discussion became Mount Etna-like in its eruptions. Cheese with seafood pasta? Never! Well, maybe. Both Mr. Giovanetti and Mr. Nanni declared vehemently that cheese with seafood would be as much of a sacrilege as pouring ketchup over carpaccio.

Do Italians put oil in the water?

I’m not saying you should get in an argument with your Italian grandmother about whether or not you should add olive oil to pasta water, but I am saying that she would win. For some reason, it has become relatively common knowledge in the US that the one thing you should always do when boiling water for pasta is drizzle in olive oil to prevent the pasta from sticking.

• And it’s just downright wrong — at least, according to Italians.
• The truth is that olive oil and pasta are a match made in heaven, but only once the pasta is cooked.
• Adding the oil to the boiling water before you pour in the pasta or drizzling it on top as the pasta is boiling away does not do it any favors.

In fact, adding olive oil can ultimately harm the finished dish because it can prevent the sauce from clinging to the pasta. The whole point of saving pasta water is that the starchy substance helps pasta cling to its sauce, and the slickness of olive oil can interfere.

Ask any chef or Italian cook, and they’ll back me up. Better yet, experience it firsthand like I did. If you find yourself in Italy — I recently traveled to Verona to learn about Giovanni Rana — pay attention to the way your pasta is cooked. No matter if it’s spaghetti or ravioli (somehow it’s more commonly believed that filled pastas need oil in particular), you won’t find anyone pouring olive oil into the pot.

Even one of Lidia Bastianich’s pasta-cooking tips is that you shouldn’t add olive oil to the water, and what she says is the Italian bible, people. Lidia has been quoted saying, “Do not — I repeat, do not — add oil to your pasta cooking water ! And that’s an order!” So the next time you’re looking forward to cooking up a batch of fresh pasta, or even dried, do yourself a favor and break out the good olive oil,

Do Italians call pasta noodles?

Senior Member. ‘Pasta’ is Italian food made out of thin dough in a variety of shapes (some noodles, some not). ‘Noodles’ are common food in many countries, and have been for thousands of years.

Do Italians put cheese on their pasta?

Italian Pasta Rule #10: Don’t Limit Yourself to Just One Pasta Type – Italy boasts hundreds of pasta varieties, That’s enough for a lifetime of tasty trips. So, when you go to Italy, let your taste buds wander off the beaten track. Instead of ordering the same pasta repeatedly, try a new kind in each ristorante or region.

Elisabeth Jonsson