Saturday, May 25, 2024

how many of these crimes have you committed?

I was aware of some of these "sins" (supposedly according to Italians), but not all of them:

The video's list of culinary crimes and my thoughts:

1. Putting ketchup on pasta. I've never done this. But I've eaten Chef Boyardee products.

2. Putting pasta in cold water, then boiling. I normally boil and salt my water first.

3. Eating pasta as a side dish. I usually serve pasta as an integral part of a main.

4. Cutting or breaking long pasta. I stopped doing that years ago.

5. Putting cream in carbonara sauce. Just no, but creamy carbonara is all over Asia.

6. Rinsing cooked pasta in cold water. I also stopped doing this years ago.

7. Drinking cappuccino after lunch. Irrelevant. I don't drink coffee.

8. Eating garlic bread with pasta. Guilty as charged. I had no idea this was a sin.

9. Ordering spaghetti bolognese in Italy. I've had it in France.

10. Expecting fettuccine Alfredo in Italy. I should trying ordering this in Italy.

11. Cooking nonexistent recipes like spaghetti with meatballs and chicken with pasta. Guilty as charged again. It never occurred to me that spaghetti with meatballs wouldn't be a thing for Italians. Then again, I've started watching the Pasta Queen, and she recently did a creamy-sauce/meatball recipe, so take your beef up with her. I suspect that not all Italians feel the same way about this "sin."

12. Dumping a ton of Parmigiano on seafood pasta. I don't recall ever "dumping."

13. Putting calamari in a to-go box. This sounds more like a restaurant problem than a diner problem.

14. Selecting angel-hair pasta. If this is a sin, that's weird. So where does angel-hair pasta come from? Wikipedia says this: "Capelli d'angelo has been popular in Italy since at least the 14th century and is known for its delicate, light texture."

15. Asking for butter with bread. The video's explanation actually sounds plausible. While the French love to butter their bread (du bon pain et du bon beurre), they too have a grand tradition of using hunks of bread to mop up sauce. It's how God intended us to use bread, and I've definitely seen the Italian dipping of bread into oil and/or balsamic vinegar. That's also an awesome way to eat good bread. Good bread, mind you.

So I'm guilty of at least two sins, but I find it hard to think of those things as sins. So I might be guilty, but I don't feel guilty. It's also important to consider that there's Italian cuisine, but there's also Italian-American cuisine, which is its own thing.



1 comment:

John Mac said...

I'm not that big on Italian food and rarely cook anything other than spaghetti. But a slice or two of garlic bread is part of the equation. It's not on the list, but I cut my spaghetti with a fork instead of rolling it. Yeah, that's a capital crime, but I don't care--it works for me.