Consider it a classic spaghetti dinner. In the eyes of all Americans, it’s the ultimate Italian food. Whether you’re enjoying it at home or in a neighborhood restaurant, sit down with a piled-high plate of spaghetti smothered in rich tomato or Caro sauce on top the sum is liberally borne. And of course, garlic bread you have another income, and maybe a salad on the side. It’s an image, it’s a staple – and so completely wrong!
What I want to talk about here is the American idea of an Italian spaghetti dinner versus properly prepared spaghetti, served in an authentic Italian style.
America is a great melting pot. Within a generation of arriving on American shores, most immigrants find their cultures absorbed and immersed in something “American.” Nowhere is this more so than among ethnic groups.
For example, you can go anywhere in China looking for a bowl of suey and you will be disappointed and hungry. You will have a particular Chinese restaurant in America for that “classic Chinese” preparation.
Similarly, in Italy you won’t have much luck finding a spaghetti dinner – at least not the way it’s prepared in America.
I have often wondered how American cooks are able to tear apart such a simple meal. And really, I confess, I don’t know when, where, why, or how the American version of “Oy-talian” went wrong.
But I think maybe Julia Child has something to do with it. Or at least his generation of American cooks.
Legions of home cook fanatics have taken to literally empty grocery store shelves of ingredients for whatever Julia was cooking on TV this week. So when he said, “This is how you cook . . . ” So whatever, by golly, that’s how you cook!
Not bad, I loved and adored Julia Infante, and I don’t actually read it. I mean, I’m just un cuoco italiano semplice – a simple italian cook, simply tying the strings Juliet. My Smithsonian kitchen adventures included nil. However, he sometimes clearly erred on the fringes of his expertise. But because it was … Julia Boy, for Pete’s sake, who was going to ask her?
In my collection, I have a two copies of “Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook” – the venerable “Red Plaid” cookbook – first published in 1930. The older edition I have probably dates back to the fities. I also have the “restored” 1989 edition. In both cases, the “Red Plaid” cookie delivers the traditional American way of preparing a spaghetti dinner.
I also have a copy of the first Italian cookbook published in the United States, “Simple Italian Cookery”. Antonia Isola, by the author of 1912, came out in 1912 and shows how to cook spaghetti dishes the Italian way. (He never remembered that “Antonia Isola” was really a New Yorker named Mabilius Count McGinnis. She must have lived in Italy for a while and understood the Italian ways of cooking.
Now it’s not like Juliet Boy cooked from the “Red Plaid” of life. I mean this because it was from his time and culture. And, although most American cooks wanted to cook like Julia, in many ways Julia cooked like most American cooks. Again, I don’t know exactly when or why American chefs started using Italian cooking methods, but Julia’s time hit it. airwaves in the early ’60s, the American way of cooking Italian food was a well-established culinary standard.
I recently traveled through an episode of “Julia the French Chef” in which the American culinary icon cooked a spaghetti dinner. Loved ya, Jules, but while you were in France, ya shoulda spent a little time in Italy. After all, it was the Italians who taught the French to cook in the first place.
And America’s favorite “French Chef” Italian food is cooked like an American.
First, put the oil in the water in the spaghetti. Now this is not necessarily a great mistake, as long as you understand why you are doing it. So many people think it has something to do with spaghetti sticking or clumping. Wrong, wrong, wrong. old wives tale. Don’t do it! Unless you’re trying to force them into an emulsion at the same time, simply don’t mix oil and water and instead approach your own. Spaghetti, infused oil in boiling water you will just form a bath of oil on top of your water. Just enter “oil in water pasta” or something similar in the subject box of your browser. You have to scoff at the reasons why this old custom has long since fallen out of favor.
It is possible, however. When you add spaghetti to boiling water, the dissolved almonds increase the surface tension of the water, changing it from a rolling or bubbling boil to a foamy boil that floods over the top of your pot and makes a mess on your stove. What you’re doing when you add oil to boiling pasta water is that the expansion of the water reduces the surface area, thereby reducing the likelihood of the mess overflowing. It has nothing to do with the fact that the spaghetti is clumping or sticking. And you only need, at most, a tablespoonful. To be fair, Julia reports this correct usage. You can certainly accomplish this by using a larger pot or by stirring it once in a while. and by simply lowering the heat through the notch. Once the water reaches 212°, it boils. A rolling, bubbling boil does not mean the water is boiling more. If you start to see foam creeping toward the top of your pot, turn the heat down a notch. As long as you don’t boil it down to “low” water. and cook spaghetti. You don’t need stupid oil. In fact, it’s best to keep the spaghetti from sticking together while it cooks.
Poor Julia. An overhead camera shot shows him throwing dry hands spaghetti in the general direction of his pot. Toto scatters the pot into a fan formation. Some of the said urn, that is made urn. And, through it all, you hear a singular voice saying boldly, “I never know how to properly get into the pot.”
It is quite simple. Gather the dry spaghetti into a tight bundle in your hand, and immediately drop them all into the boiling water. Complete! never, never, never, ever break in half! Mario Batali will tell you (tongue in cheek) that spaghetti in Italy is criminal unless you have it. Pontifical dispensation. It will only stick in the right pot for a short time. Then, as the submerged ends begin to soften, you just take a spoon and swirl the noodles around until they are all submerged. Tah-dah!
It’s all about size and shape. If you are fixing spaghetti for four, you need a pound of spaghetti and at least – note the emphasis – five quarts of water. Aren’t you a good fit for a double quartet of brass? And the Dutch oven will not work well. If the water level goes up to half an inch above the top of the pot, you’re asking for a mess waiting to happen. You need something about the size of a Dutch oven, but twice as long. Something in which the spaghetti can roam freely. This secret is to keep sticking. Lots of room to give. Keep stirring, especially in the first minute or two of cooking when the initial starches are released. Stirring – not greasing – will keep your spaghetti dough free.
I couldn’t help but notice that Julia does not add salt to the cooking water, opting to “season the spaghetti after it’s cooked. Oh, my!
According to the principles of good cooking, each dish should be prepared as it is prepared. They probably aren’t much softer than flat, tasteless spaghetti. It also needs salt. It is best to use salt to draw out the flavor during the cooking process add salt with five quarts of water. No, it will not give you a blow. The salt will drain most of the time with the water.
Juliet tastes his spaghetti to define her impiety rather than throwing it at the wall, or something equally silly. For this he uses the name al dente – which means “to the tooth” or “to the bite”. But what is that? It means the spaghetti should be held from the outside with a bit of firmness on the inside. Cooked spaghetti is hard and chewy; Overcooked spaghetti is mushy. Al dente is that happy medium you’ve been looking for. Follow your package directions. If the cooking time says “8 to 10 minutes,” go with eight. I will tell you why in a minute.
Then Julia throws her spaghetti into the colander and proceeds to draw quick pedicels out of it, explaining that you are completely drained. Well, Julia, but don’t look at it. A little pasta water can be a friend. The best Italian cooks will also reserve a small cup of cooking water for use in the evening’s sauce, if required. Just drain it, but don’t carry the nuts around.
In another breath, Julia states that it’s important to put oil on cooked spaghetti “because sometimes the sauce sticks to it. I think it’s better to taste your spaghetti first and then put the sauce on.” And he says this when he pours a bowl of sauce on a plate of spaghetti.
Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh! Wrong in so many ways! First of all, you want the sauce to stick to the spaghetti. It’s all about the pods! I only ever, ever, ever put oil in my cooked spaghetti if I serve it spaghetti aglio e olio, or spaghetti with something else and oil. Otherwise, you get fat spaghetti that won’t stick to the sauce and taste and that will slip off your fork when you try to eat it. No wonder so many Americans can’t get hung up on eating spaghetti. They prepare it in a way that is affected from the beginning.
And then there is the matter of sauces. This is the real divider between American-style Spaghetti and Italian-style Spaghetti.
Julia – and the American screw-up of her life – insists that you top the spaghetti with sauce. This is a 20th century twist on American Italian cooking traditions. Recipes that follow the true Italian preparation method instruct you to add the drained spaghetti to the sauce and cook it in the sauce for a minute or two. That’s why I advised you to use the lower number “8 to 10 minutes” instruction. Take the strain out of the water for eight minutes and cook it in vinegar for two. This way the flavor of the sauce will be absorbed by the spaghetti.
I don’t know how the Americans realized that spaghetti should be swimming in sauce. But nothing less. Prepared and presented, just enough sauce for the noodles. In Italian cooking, spaghetti is the star of the dish. Therefore, it is essential that the noodles are properly seasoned, properly cooked, and seasoned. A dressing is a sauce to add some flavor and texture, like a dressing on salads. Two things you will never find in a real table – sauce on the top and the sauce left over.
You won’t find another thing – heaping, overflowing spaghetti spears. The whole thing abbondanza is an Italian-American concept. People in Italy think that the American party is the least profuse and the most profuse. Remember, most pasta dishes served in Italy first – the main precursor. meat or fish course. Only in America – or encountered in tourist restaurants in Italy – these meals are perfect for a meal.
That completes the last point in the composition of the American Spaghetti dinner; garlic bread and salad served on the side.
Italians are not big on salads. They do not eat to say. It’s just that they aren’t dedicated to serving any dinners the way Americans are.
And there is no garlic bread. We are sorry. These are the first words I remember from the son’s mouth when he drove me out of Italy. Father, do you not know that there is nothing like garlic bread? Somewhere in the last century, Americans came up with the idea of drinking slices of Italian bread infused with garlic butter, slathering it with oregano, and calling it “Italian bread.” garlic.”
Try this place; a torta of Italian bread, or any kind of bread, or country torta, cut in half to two slices. Pour in a little extra virgin oil. And I mean drizzle, not soak. Stick it under the broiler for a minute or so, until it starts to get toasty. Grab a clove of garlic and cut off the end. Rub the end of the garlic clove over the surface of the toast a few times. A little goes a long way. Then lightly sprinkle a coarse particle of salt – kosher or sea – over the bread. Now you’ve taken “garlic bread” the Italian way.
Pair that – and maybe a small salad – with a realistically prepared sauced spaghetti and you have a real Italian-style spaghetti dinner I have possessed (You still won’t find it listed on the menu in Italy, but pretty much…..)
Oh, and on the non-cooking note; In the “French Chef” episode, Julia repeats the old story about Marco Polo and Spaghetti China. That’s why he calls his sauce “Marco Polo” and even uses hammers to stir it up. What do you say to me? The Marco Polo myth began circulating in America in the early twentieth century and will probably be around until the end of the century. Scholars proved it to be false after a while, but it’s there, and when they hear it on TV from Julia’s childish mouth – well has it’s true, right?
Not always.
Bon appetit!
