Younger people are better about this, but every non-italian american boomer I know breaks spaghetti in half so it fits in the pot better, adds oil to the water, boils the living shit out of it, and then rinses off any starch left over.
Because it's so short and limp, they then use a spoon and a fork together to eat it.
It's so ubiquitous, I think that there must have been some cookbook or every magazine in the 50s telling them all to do this.
breaks spaghetti in half so it fits in the pot better, adds oil to the water, boils the living shit out of it, and then rinses off any starch left over.
Are you not supposed to do that, minus washing it afterwards?
IME it's best to either use a pot large enough that you don't have to break the noodles or, if that's not possible, wait until the noodles soften up just enough for you to twist them the rest of the way in with a pair of tongs. Broken spaghetti is a lot harder to keep on a fork, hence the spoon. Not overcooking the noodles is really important because no amount of sauce can cover up mushy spaghetti. When you bite into it there should be a little give before breaking through, the best way to figure this out is to just eat a noodle every now and then and take the spaghetti out of the water just slightly before you feel like it's good, it'll keep cooking for a little bit out of the water.
I've only heard about the oil bit recently and I still haven't heard the reasoning behind it, I've never done it.
Removing starch via too much water or rinsing decreases how well sauce can stick to it.
Overcooking adds too much moisture so sauce doesn't stick as much and removes any kind of structure the pasta had, which makes the texture really bad. It shouldn't crunch or snap, but it shouldn't droop straight down when you pick up a noodle.
Adding oil to the water prevents sauce from sticking to the pasta.
Every mother fucker on earth will say you're cooking some food wrong and they're doing it right. The correct way to cook any food is how you like it, unless you're cooking for someone else then you cook it how they like it. People that say it's harder to eat if you break it in half are b&w caricatures in infomercials.
fucking what
Younger people are better about this, but every non-italian american boomer I know breaks spaghetti in half so it fits in the pot better, adds oil to the water, boils the living shit out of it, and then rinses off any starch left over.
Because it's so short and limp, they then use a spoon and a fork together to eat it.
It's so ubiquitous, I think that there must have been some cookbook or every magazine in the 50s telling them all to do this.
Are you not supposed to do that, minus washing it afterwards?
no
heavily salted water, don't break it, 10 minutes in the pot max, usually slightly less
Some sort of pasta may need more time, e.g. pici
I always make sure to break my spaghetti while facing the direction of Rome.
IME it's best to either use a pot large enough that you don't have to break the noodles or, if that's not possible, wait until the noodles soften up just enough for you to twist them the rest of the way in with a pair of tongs. Broken spaghetti is a lot harder to keep on a fork, hence the spoon. Not overcooking the noodles is really important because no amount of sauce can cover up mushy spaghetti. When you bite into it there should be a little give before breaking through, the best way to figure this out is to just eat a noodle every now and then and take the spaghetti out of the water just slightly before you feel like it's good, it'll keep cooking for a little bit out of the water.
I've only heard about the oil bit recently and I still haven't heard the reasoning behind it, I've never done it.
Removing starch via too much water or rinsing decreases how well sauce can stick to it.
Overcooking adds too much moisture so sauce doesn't stick as much and removes any kind of structure the pasta had, which makes the texture really bad. It shouldn't crunch or snap, but it shouldn't droop straight down when you pick up a noodle.
Adding oil to the water prevents sauce from sticking to the pasta.
Breaking it in half makes it harder to eat.
Every mother fucker on earth will say you're cooking some food wrong and they're doing it right. The correct way to cook any food is how you like it, unless you're cooking for someone else then you cook it how they like it. People that say it's harder to eat if you break it in half are b&w caricatures in infomercials.