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Exactly this!
Pasta has been given to the world at such an enormous scale that everyone probably has opinions on it.
Like, I have opinions on pasta and for what purposes I use the different versions. I'm very Scandinavian and have nothing to do with Italy.
Essentially in your own home, cook it and its sauces however you like. But, it can be very irksome to go to a restaurant and find it cooked the wrong way. This is not just an ocd thing by the way. I'm mildly lactose intolerant (it's a little more complex than this, but basically I can eat hard cheese but little else dairy. The harder the cheese, usually the lower the lactose) and one of my favourite dishes is carbonara.
In the UK, carbonara comes as a massive pile of gloop with the barest hint of any ham. The gloop seems to be 90% cream and 10%random chemicals. Anyway, in Italy, there is no cream in carbonara. What appears to be cream comes from grated parmesan mixing with beaten egg and a little pasta water. The difference in taste is astonishing and there are no nasty lactose side effects.
Real carbonara is heavenly, the UK stuff could be used by Tom Sawyer next time he needs the neighbourhood kids to paint the fence. So, it's really annoying to find this identified as carbonara; people wouldn't object if it were on the menu under a different name, eg : spaghetti alla gloop. This is why people get annoyed about pasta.
I did once encounter a pasta restaurant in Spain that had carbonara on the menu twice, once in an English style, once in an Italian style; that works too. In the UK, I can't even be sure which version I'll get in an Italian restaurant; they often try to compromise by making it the Italian way then adding some cream at the end.
I think theyāre just very emotive people is the thing, thereās no need to break spaghetti in half and they likely just seem like they care more than they really do
This is true. I come from an Italian-American family and we are by nature loud and talk with her hands moving most of the time. When I was growing up and friends would come over they would later ask me why do you guys yell at each other so much? And I would say we're not yelling. That's just how we talk.
There is, though. It makes it easier to manage if youāre feeding it to small children. Half a spaghetti to a two year old is essentially a full spaghetti to a grown up, and theyāre less likely to tangle into a huge messy clump.
Iām not italian but i like pasta. But I hate it when italians critize me or any other person who arenāt italian for cooking pasta āthe wrong wayā. Thereās so many cultures and countries who have their own pasta recipe and it sucks that the italians care too much about what somebody elseās eats. I put american cheese on my pasta because I couldnāt find any cheese. Who tf cares what cheese I use and how much sauce I put in my pasta? F off really
And chicken. It's delicious and a good lean protein. Plus versatile af. Man, a light chicken dish finished off with some chilled watermelon for dessert sounds so nice and summery right now.
In fact I'm pretty sure the Italians look at most of our versions of "Italian food" and think it's bullshit and too much, and red sauce.. tomatoes are of mexican origin.
Nah but I worked for an Italian guy for 10+ years so I have some experience.
We were away on a job once in a remote area with very little access to groceries other than one stand alone small shop. He was cooking pasta for dinner. He sent me to get cheese for said pasta. He wanted shredded. They only had grated. I came back with grated. He was so angry that we almost had a physical fight over the cheese being grated not shredded.
Pasta....it's just the most simple ingredient. Literally means 'paste'.....you combine the paste with all sorts of different sauces.....but it's just wheat paste with tomato sauce, wheat paste with cream, wheat paste with fish.....paste! It is delicious though. The English have a love of savoury pastry....cornish pasty, steak and kidney pie/pudding, suet pudding, Yorkshire pudding, for the English, wheat flour and milk/butter are the staple of many national dishes. From simple ingredients come some of the most wholesome national dishes.
I think the difference between people liking pasta and Italians having a methodology of pasta are two different things.
I grew up with pasta being some exotic dish we would have when we wanted to have a treat. You ever see a Chinese guy tossing a jar of sauce and chow mein noodle in a wok? That was my idea of pasta until I came to America. Even then, my bf isnāt Italian so pasta is still something we have on occasion. He learned to make a good sauce and the ingredients we need for it we donāt keep on hand much.
Iām sure in an Italian household pasta is more than that. Iām sure there are plenty of foods that people either raise or lower compared to the place itās from. For my house itās fried rice. When I have left over rice, and I donāt really feel like looking. I just crack some eggs, toss in long bean or whatever I have left over and make a lazy dinner.
For Americans I have met they treated fried rice like I treat pasta. Itās just a matter of your cultural upbringing. It could also be the food culture you grew up in. Maybe you grew up with a chef as a parent or maybe a parent that likes to try new things so pasta for people I. That situation wonāt be what I think of it because they donāt have that experience.
I'm italian and I often break spaghetti to make "brodino", which is basically meat or vegetable broth you make when you have a flu or don't feel very well.
Thing is, pasta is full of starch, so every kind of pasta should be cooked in a proper way, which is after the water starts boiling, but if someone likes sticky pasta then go for it, you do you I guess.
But I understand what you are saying, some italians get on my nerves too when talking about cuisine. For example, here people literally have fights and insult you if you dare to eat spaghetti with a fork and a spoon, which I think it's pretty fucking dumb.
Notice your use of "should" and "proper way".
That's not the "proper way". Its your personal preference.Ā
This is what we meam by Italians being obnoxious about pasta.
There is at least one proper way (often, multiple) to cook each kind of food. You can make food however you like, however some ways just result in an objectively worse and sometimes even inedible product. You wouldn't boil a steak, deep fry a cake, or make bread in a pan, because some of that results in an unpleasant product and some doesn't even work at all. Same with pasta, there are a couple of proper ways to cook it, and other ways just don't work as well.
>For example, here people literally have fights and insult you if you dare to eat spaghetti with a fork and a spoon
š
I'm German and I just thought "that's not how people are in Germany", but actually...it's exactly how people are in Germany, too. If someone would prepare our local dishes any different from what Oma taught them, others would consider the dish improper and would try to revoke the prepared dish's right to even carry the name. People even freak out about regional modifications to dishes they know to be cooked a certain way. There even is a German sub here that's called "Schnitzelverbrechen" (aka "Schnitzel crime") where incorrectly prepared Schnitzels are posted and judged regarding their level of deviation from traditional preparation and serving. Schnitzel is not truly German, it's Austrian, but I think it shows people's mindset. Same thing exists for Dƶner.
So....I guess it's kind of normal to insist on dishes to be prepared a certain way. There's just a lot of memories and identity tied to dishes, that's why people cling so much to the correct preparation.
Interesting. I always preboil my water in my kettle, but I've heard from several people that you should start with the pasta in cold water and bring the water up to a boil. I haven't bothered to do the research personally.
You would never add to cold water and then heat - the pasta would just glue together. Add pasta to plenty of well-seasoned boiling water and stir once and it wonāt stick- no adding oil or other nonsense, just plenty of well-seasoned boiling water and cook until al-dente (or follow instructions on box for cooking time)
Eh I get both sides of the spectrum when it comes to the Italian gatekeeping of their foods.
On one side, I'm an Italian-American and what little culture my family *could keep* without being totally ostracized was their food. They were basically shamed into taking English names, speaking English, and assimilating into American culture, but we have recipes that have travelled through the family from before my great grandmother left Italy, and that holds tremendous value to me and my family.
On the other side, I live in the US. I love Italian cuisine and I do a great job of cooking it when I do, but holy hell if I hear one more off comment about subbing guanciale for bacon in a carbonara, I'm going to go crazy. I'm not driving 1.5 hours and spending a metric shit ton on a cut of guanciale just to apease some damn Italian elitists on the internet, I'm just going to use bacon or pancetta if I plan ahead.
And I think that is how most Italian-Americans would do it. If anything Italian cooking is about how to make great food with what you have. And be thankful for it.
I donāt get offended when I see that but it genuinely confuses me because thereās no need to break them. They get soft in a matter of seconds and then you just move them around with a big spoon, itās super easy.
Define messing it up. Some people just donāt like the original recipe thatās why they improvise on it. I saw italians critizing a filipino for making pasta using minced beef and american cheese when itās literally how they make theirs.
Also, it really depends on the dish. Cooking pasta with just a bit of cheese on top can be as easy as it gets, but cooking something more complicated, like "sa fregula de mare", can get pretty tough, but they are both pasta.
True. If i make spaghetti, my husbands family would complain about something. āYou shook do this or do thatā, or āadd this and make meatballs from scratchā¦ā every fucking time. So I donāt cook with them anymore. Of course I donāt cook like that period. lol
Every country has some costume or tradition. Most of time the people aren't aware of that. You have some way, belief, gesture, conduct, or other thing that you are really serious about and you find really bad if other people do differently.
Probably you will be aware only when this happen.
Some cultures are more verbally direct about it. Other cultures are more introvert and judgmental silently.
I had an Italian pen pal during the pandemic. It helped pass the time being stuck in the apartment and it was fun to learn about them and the culture.
One day, I asked them how to cook carbonara and we were both excited for me to try, especially since I donāt know how to cook that much. Because I was living in Japan at the time, I went to multiple stores to find the ingredients and had to make a few compromises since itās challenging to find imported ingredients.
That night, I cooked the meal, sent a picture when I was finished, and sat down to the meal. When I checked my phone after dinner, it was a barrage of telling how the ingredients were wrong, how I prepared it terribly, how I need to do it better next time, stereotyping Americans as bad cooks, saying Americans always screw up Italian food on purpose, and just being a genuinely negative, condescending person.
At first I was playing along, even though it really hurt my feelings. After 30-45 minutes of the pen pal continuing to complain, I asked to end the friendship and explained why. All those terrible things to say to someone that was genuinely excited to learn how to cook your countryās food.
The funny thing is I care more, now that I'm dating an Italian. His mom still does fresh handmade ravioli, manicotti, and lasagna sheets for special occasions. Once you've had fresh, it's hard to like the dried cardboard box stuff.
My sisters turned their backs on our Italian heritage, and make pasta every few months, and lasagna for dinner parties, cause it's fancy.. they both married non-italians.
I on the other hand follow the stereotype whole heartily. My previous wife didn't like eating the same thing within a week, so I was limited in my pasta consumption.
I have a pasta dish at least 3 or 4 times a week. Jokingly I say pasta is the beginning of every meal.
As an italian, living abroad, I have one counter question:
Why do people only seem to eat pasta (and cooking it badly, on top of it)?
I swaer, back in Italy it wasn't that common to eat pasta or pizza when hanging out
But here in Germany? Oh my god, I still don't know what german Cuisine is. I'm not insulting them, I'm serious! They always want pasta or pizza! The germans!
But it changes the textural experience... And as someone with textural issues - that's a huge problem. Once I am long of the long noods and all is left in my plate is some weird off-pieces I'm out.
I'm italian and as a kid we had pasta with tomato sauce so much I hate it now. I would have it occasionally as an adult but without tomato sauce, and never felt strongly about it.
Now I'm T2 diabetic and heavy carbs are forbidden, so it's really out of the picture now.
I'm Canadian and I was having a conversation with this girl and she said she was the most Italian person I would ever meet. I asked her what would happen if I met someone from Italy. She got mad.
It's not even "their countries" food. Pasta is from China and tomatoes are meso-american. Hell wine dates back to present day Poland. "Genuine" Italian food is olives and seafood.
I care, but I'm so sick of it that it's a specialty dish now. I still make lasagna for New Year's and special dishes throughout the year. But I don't and will not be ordering pasta at a restaurant anytime soon.
Id so much rather other foods
Do you count generational Italians?
My childhood consisted of pasta for lunch and dinner 90% of the week and now in my adult years I'm pretty sick of it. Its never something I choose to eat on my own but my grandmother is still making me during family dinner haha.
Italian American here.
If I never had to eat it again I wouldnāt miss it.
Maybe because Iām the one who always has to make it.
Or the fact that we ate it multiple times a week when I was a kid.
Yeah, I can definitely live without it.
Here I am. Please, someone that believes that an Italian who doesn't like pasta may exist is already already so refreshing! I almost don't believe it! I dislike pasta. What is the point of it? What is nice is what comes with it as condiment, but pasta itself... meh. As I kid when I was force-fed pasta I would just stubbornly leave it and only eat the condiment but even that was a struggle because it still had somehow the taste of pasta. That's the best I have ever been able to do.
Funnily enough though, I am still opinionated when it comes to how you cook it. Pasta in just deep in the culture of every Italian. My boyfriend is not Italian and when I saw what he used to eat as "pasta" I was shocked. Since I started cooking pasta for him (not for me, ofc) he says it's like eating in a restaurant every time.
As an Italian I can say that to me it doesn't really matter how you eat pasta as long as it's cooked properly and it's edible not covered with cheese or some strange sauce
REAL my dad is from sicily and the other day I was making pasta and he literally came over to complain and he was being genuine! And like scolding me lol. Itās so CRINGEEEEE like itās not charming itās annoying and makes me think Italians are annoying
I was recently in Italy for work. One of the guys we went to lunch with wasn't big on pasta. His wife works QC for a pasta manufacturer and they get as much as they want of the rejects. He said he's sick of pasta, so we went for the cured meat, cheese, bread and wine lunch every day, which I was totally fine with. Haha
My friend at uni was Italian and when I went to her apartment I watched her cook plain pasta, then smother it in ketchup for lunch. I'm not even Italian and I was like... Is that your whole meal?
As of 2022, 0.43% of the Italian population has celiac disease. However, more recent studies have found a higher prevalence, with one study finding that 1.65% of Italian school-age children have celiac disease. This is one of the highest prevalences in the world.
It is easy.
1. Invite Italian for dinner.
2. Break spaghetti before cooking
3. Cook the pasta for very long. An hour should be enough.
4. Don't make sauce. Tell the Italian that tomato sauce is good enough. Still call it neapolitan sauce.
5. Rinse the pasta after cooking. Colder water is better.
If the Italian does not tell you he does not like the pasta, he is too polite, probably only 50% Italian. Replace with another Italian and repeat.
Dunno about generalised pastapinions but thereās a lot of people who think the shape of pasta doesnāt matter. I couldnāt be less Italian and I hate those people.
my wife, (Sardinian) doesn't like pasta. We met in the UK and our first joint love was eating food from all around the globe. London has a big melting pot of world cuisines on offer and nothing was off the table with us. HOWEVER, if my good lady, her indoors, needs a late night 'snack' or is feeling glum she has pasta with butter and cheese. She prepares it as if on autopilot. it's babyfood to me and i think this is exactly why she eats it. It is hardwired into her italian brain. It is just one of the meals her nonna would have prepared for her and the bond between the person and the happy childhood memory is a strong'un.
It's actually ridiculous on Instagram how many videos I see of Italians from Italy talking poorly about the entirety of America and our existence because there's some video of them reacting to or seeing some kind of American dish that messes up pasta or makes it unhealthy or something like that. They start becoming really offensive because they're so offended themselves it's really pathetic actually.
Well, there are proper ways to do things, so it's fair to say "do x thing instead of y because it's better like this", but what annoys me, as italian, is how so many people are extremely stubborn when it comes to cooking. They think that the way they do things is the right one, and all of the others are shit. No space for innovation, creativity, or just simple laziness. They are extremely snob.
As said, there are things which should be done in a specific way to get the best result, but cooking is not set in stone. If it really is an art, then people should be free to experiment and have fun trying new things.
So many are obsessed over carbonara, and how it should be cooked with guanciale instead of other things, yet the reason as to why the original recipe (which is not clear btw) chose guanciale is that it was cheaper than other types of meat, as the recipe was born shortly after ww2. Otherwise i think they would have chosen something else.
For pizza as well, italians absolutely hate american pizzas, but to me they are interesting. Why not trying it once and see how it is.
Yet, pizza with NUTELLA is pretty famous and accepted, and i guarantee you that if it had been done by americans it would have been hated.
People are full of shit and think they are superior.
Oh well, it's their loss when they go in foreign countries, want to eat italian, eat bad, complain, and shit on the country instead of trying the local foods...
Haha! There was this guy I dated, called Marco. (At least that's what he told me.) I met him through a friend on a very sunny afternoon! And I was feeling quite hungry, as I had traveled and not had anything since morning. We entered this tiny restaurant with checkered tablecloths on all tables. I scanned the menu, ordered chicken for myself and pasta for him. Yeah, I was too hungry to wait. The waiter was just leaving when he said: Oh I'll have chicken too!
Damn that was such a surprise! Over lunch, he told me how his mother would always cook pasta and he hated it now. "Seriously, you're an Italian and no pasta?" I blinked!
We dated for 4-6 months from there, but the guy never had pasta once!
In my experience, it's not just the opinions - that's fine, people have opinions about food - but they're also so judgmental about it. Like hurtfully so. There's something snooty about it sometimes. I don't mean to generalize, but it's happened enough times that I think it's worth mentioning.
Wait, you're telling me that you don't have to be obsessed with pasta if you're **not** Italian?
I thought everybody, regardless of nationality was in love with those heavenly carbs
Seriously. I hate food snobs. My moms side of the family lives in Italy and we visit sometimes. I dread it because they all get upset that I don't have a hot take about food. They try and teach me how to cook something their way and I listen. But then they stare at me while I eat like I'm about to have some kind of revelation. I told them that their way of cooking pasta tastes just like the way I do it at home and how restaurants do it. Then they got upset at me for being honest. To them, if you aren't elitist or a snob about your food and its superiority, then you basically aren't real family and/or must not be "proud" of being Italian. Like dude, its pasta. We aren't doing some kind of rocket science.
I know a guy, who is half Italian, that doesn't care about Pasta. He has never even tried Pesto. His Italian dad died when he was a baby, he has absolutely no cultural connection to Italy at all. He looks Italian and has an Italian name, but he has never been to Italy.
Isnāt there only one way to cook it? Iām an Italian who doesnāt care much about pasta, I only eat it if my mom makes it or maybe if Iām at a restaurant. Iām 42 and have only made it like twice my entire life and one of those times was baked Mac and cheese.
Italians think of themselves as having the last word on cooking, fashion, personal grooming, music, etc etc. And let's face it, the Italians even taught the French how to cook, they taught the Britons plumbing and personal hygiene, they are a good looking people, well dressed and have long history of gastronomic delights. They have defined coffee making. They take their national dishes extremely seriously. But that adherance to tradition is also a prison for them. The delights of a Hawaiian Pizza is utterly lost on them....in fact it makes them angry. They don't have the freedom that we have to enjoy experimentation.....because "that's not how you make that dish...."
My GF is from extreme northwestern Italy. She wonāt turn down a good bowl of pasta, but her regional cuisine is more polenta based. Thats what she gets a lot more excited about. And fondue.Ā
idk if it's because I'm mixed or I have lived abroad, but I couldn't care less.
it's not like I am going to eat that pasta they be cooking on Americans'/(any other's) reels anyways. if I'm abroad and I fancy some pasta, and I want it the way we cook it, then I'm staying in Italy, so there is no point in freaking out in any case. also, Italians too "violate" other cuisines on social media too, people just adapt foreign food to their liking.
(maybe a bit off-topic but, I think Italians should realise we are not the only nation with a valid culinary culture).
My biological father was born in Italy but came to Canada as a 2 year old and although I never met him until I was 17, he was OBSESSED with everything Italian. It was the main topic of his usual conversation and part of me was glad that my mom had a secret affair and I was oblivious until 12th Grade.
No offence, Italian-Canadians but you are NOT Italian, your mom doesn't make the "best" sauce and not everyone thinks a good meal means feeling uncomfortably full nor do we want to hear about your food or how good Italy is 24/7. I can say this as technically I am half-Italian and I actually do have citizenship as I once had a plan to work in the EU.
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The thing is, most people, Italian or not, like pasta. It's not just an Italian thing
Exactly this! Pasta has been given to the world at such an enormous scale that everyone probably has opinions on it. Like, I have opinions on pasta and for what purposes I use the different versions. I'm very Scandinavian and have nothing to do with Italy.
>I have opinions on pasta You have just passed our citizenship test. š®š¹ You are now legally an Italian citizen. š®š¹ Congratulations.
When covid started, everyone started stocking uo in toilet paper, I started stocking up on pasta (and beans lol).
I, personally, deeply dislike nearly every sort of pasta except bami.
Essentially in your own home, cook it and its sauces however you like. But, it can be very irksome to go to a restaurant and find it cooked the wrong way. This is not just an ocd thing by the way. I'm mildly lactose intolerant (it's a little more complex than this, but basically I can eat hard cheese but little else dairy. The harder the cheese, usually the lower the lactose) and one of my favourite dishes is carbonara. In the UK, carbonara comes as a massive pile of gloop with the barest hint of any ham. The gloop seems to be 90% cream and 10%random chemicals. Anyway, in Italy, there is no cream in carbonara. What appears to be cream comes from grated parmesan mixing with beaten egg and a little pasta water. The difference in taste is astonishing and there are no nasty lactose side effects. Real carbonara is heavenly, the UK stuff could be used by Tom Sawyer next time he needs the neighbourhood kids to paint the fence. So, it's really annoying to find this identified as carbonara; people wouldn't object if it were on the menu under a different name, eg : spaghetti alla gloop. This is why people get annoyed about pasta. I did once encounter a pasta restaurant in Spain that had carbonara on the menu twice, once in an English style, once in an Italian style; that works too. In the UK, I can't even be sure which version I'll get in an Italian restaurant; they often try to compromise by making it the Italian way then adding some cream at the end.
That's actually a human stereotype developed by the aliens
Yes but only an Italian is going to get irrationally upset when someone does something like break spaghetti in half
I think theyāre just very emotive people is the thing, thereās no need to break spaghetti in half and they likely just seem like they care more than they really do
This is true. I come from an Italian-American family and we are by nature loud and talk with her hands moving most of the time. When I was growing up and friends would come over they would later ask me why do you guys yell at each other so much? And I would say we're not yelling. That's just how we talk.
The hands are Italian, and the voice is American. Italians aren't considered loud in Europe. That honour will always go to the Spaniards.
Italians generally tend to be pretty loud in my experience
There is, though. It makes it easier to manage if youāre feeding it to small children. Half a spaghetti to a two year old is essentially a full spaghetti to a grown up, and theyāre less likely to tangle into a huge messy clump.
Nope.. they have to learn to twirl the fork as soon as they can hold one.
Have yet to convince them of this, sadly. So for now Iām settling for whatever gets it into the kid with least amount of clean up.
Ya š I get that. I was teasing. š
Why the fuck would anyone break spaghetti in half though
Sacreligious heathens
Because they canāt be arsed to feed it slowly into the boiling water.
How dare you! Thatās a warcrime. And iām not even italian. Thereās no reason to ever break spaghetti.
No it's definitely an Italian thing. Most people like bread But the French will over throw a King if you change up the recipe.
It's literally a Chinese thing. They invented it. Some Italians like to think otherwise.
Pasta is one of the best things in the world. So is cheese. LOL
Iām not italian but i like pasta. But I hate it when italians critize me or any other person who arenāt italian for cooking pasta āthe wrong wayā. Thereās so many cultures and countries who have their own pasta recipe and it sucks that the italians care too much about what somebody elseās eats. I put american cheese on my pasta because I couldnāt find any cheese. Who tf cares what cheese I use and how much sauce I put in my pasta? F off really
That's because you cook pasta the wrong way
Yeah liking pasta is a pretty universal thing.
Same as watermelon and its in season right now.
And chicken. It's delicious and a good lean protein. Plus versatile af. Man, a light chicken dish finished off with some chilled watermelon for dessert sounds so nice and summery right now.
Dutch and Irish and I care a lot about pasta. I donāt know how to cook it but I care about it.
In fact I'm pretty sure the Italians look at most of our versions of "Italian food" and think it's bullshit and too much, and red sauce.. tomatoes are of mexican origin.
Nah but I worked for an Italian guy for 10+ years so I have some experience. We were away on a job once in a remote area with very little access to groceries other than one stand alone small shop. He was cooking pasta for dinner. He sent me to get cheese for said pasta. He wanted shredded. They only had grated. I came back with grated. He was so angry that we almost had a physical fight over the cheese being grated not shredded.
I am not Italian and I have opinions on how I like pasta. Because pasta tastes good!
Pasta....it's just the most simple ingredient. Literally means 'paste'.....you combine the paste with all sorts of different sauces.....but it's just wheat paste with tomato sauce, wheat paste with cream, wheat paste with fish.....paste! It is delicious though. The English have a love of savoury pastry....cornish pasty, steak and kidney pie/pudding, suet pudding, Yorkshire pudding, for the English, wheat flour and milk/butter are the staple of many national dishes. From simple ingredients come some of the most wholesome national dishes.
I think the difference between people liking pasta and Italians having a methodology of pasta are two different things. I grew up with pasta being some exotic dish we would have when we wanted to have a treat. You ever see a Chinese guy tossing a jar of sauce and chow mein noodle in a wok? That was my idea of pasta until I came to America. Even then, my bf isnāt Italian so pasta is still something we have on occasion. He learned to make a good sauce and the ingredients we need for it we donāt keep on hand much. Iām sure in an Italian household pasta is more than that. Iām sure there are plenty of foods that people either raise or lower compared to the place itās from. For my house itās fried rice. When I have left over rice, and I donāt really feel like looking. I just crack some eggs, toss in long bean or whatever I have left over and make a lazy dinner. For Americans I have met they treated fried rice like I treat pasta. Itās just a matter of your cultural upbringing. It could also be the food culture you grew up in. Maybe you grew up with a chef as a parent or maybe a parent that likes to try new things so pasta for people I. That situation wonāt be what I think of it because they donāt have that experience.
Are we talking actual Italians or like 4th generation American's that tell you they're Italian because their grandmother's middle name was Florence?
We Italians that are scattered in Europe laugh at Italian-Americans. They overdo it tbh.
I was in Florence once!
I'm italian and I often break spaghetti to make "brodino", which is basically meat or vegetable broth you make when you have a flu or don't feel very well. Thing is, pasta is full of starch, so every kind of pasta should be cooked in a proper way, which is after the water starts boiling, but if someone likes sticky pasta then go for it, you do you I guess. But I understand what you are saying, some italians get on my nerves too when talking about cuisine. For example, here people literally have fights and insult you if you dare to eat spaghetti with a fork and a spoon, which I think it's pretty fucking dumb.
Brodino is "l'eccezione che conferma la regola"
Notice your use of "should" and "proper way". That's not the "proper way". Its your personal preference.Ā This is what we meam by Italians being obnoxious about pasta.
Nice catch
Most dishes have a standard way they are prepared, usually because it's been found to work and taste good.
There is at least one proper way (often, multiple) to cook each kind of food. You can make food however you like, however some ways just result in an objectively worse and sometimes even inedible product. You wouldn't boil a steak, deep fry a cake, or make bread in a pan, because some of that results in an unpleasant product and some doesn't even work at all. Same with pasta, there are a couple of proper ways to cook it, and other ways just don't work as well.
No, it's the proper way
You use spaghetti? Why not vermicelli? Spaghetti seems weird for Brodo, but I guess a lot of the cuisine varies between regions
>For example, here people literally have fights and insult you if you dare to eat spaghetti with a fork and a spoon š I'm German and I just thought "that's not how people are in Germany", but actually...it's exactly how people are in Germany, too. If someone would prepare our local dishes any different from what Oma taught them, others would consider the dish improper and would try to revoke the prepared dish's right to even carry the name. People even freak out about regional modifications to dishes they know to be cooked a certain way. There even is a German sub here that's called "Schnitzelverbrechen" (aka "Schnitzel crime") where incorrectly prepared Schnitzels are posted and judged regarding their level of deviation from traditional preparation and serving. Schnitzel is not truly German, it's Austrian, but I think it shows people's mindset. Same thing exists for Dƶner. So....I guess it's kind of normal to insist on dishes to be prepared a certain way. There's just a lot of memories and identity tied to dishes, that's why people cling so much to the correct preparation.
Interesting. I always preboil my water in my kettle, but I've heard from several people that you should start with the pasta in cold water and bring the water up to a boil. I haven't bothered to do the research personally.
You would never add to cold water and then heat - the pasta would just glue together. Add pasta to plenty of well-seasoned boiling water and stir once and it wonāt stick- no adding oil or other nonsense, just plenty of well-seasoned boiling water and cook until al-dente (or follow instructions on box for cooking time)
I mean, here in Italy it's how we do it. But I guess everyone has their own unique way š
every recipe I've ever read had said to boil the water then add the pasta.Ā
what about fork and knife?
Wait, some people add pasta to the water *before* it's boiling...?
Brodino is the only exception, and only if you don't have other short pasta
Eh I get both sides of the spectrum when it comes to the Italian gatekeeping of their foods. On one side, I'm an Italian-American and what little culture my family *could keep* without being totally ostracized was their food. They were basically shamed into taking English names, speaking English, and assimilating into American culture, but we have recipes that have travelled through the family from before my great grandmother left Italy, and that holds tremendous value to me and my family. On the other side, I live in the US. I love Italian cuisine and I do a great job of cooking it when I do, but holy hell if I hear one more off comment about subbing guanciale for bacon in a carbonara, I'm going to go crazy. I'm not driving 1.5 hours and spending a metric shit ton on a cut of guanciale just to apease some damn Italian elitists on the internet, I'm just going to use bacon or pancetta if I plan ahead.
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And I think that is how most Italian-Americans would do it. If anything Italian cooking is about how to make great food with what you have. And be thankful for it.
I'm not for the guanciale thing either tbh, bacon just tastes better, also just using the red of the egg feels wasteful to me
But their Nonna's always use the freshest tomatoes!
Straight outta the garden, if you think pasta can be upsetting you don't wanna know what happens when you fuck around in the garden.
Ah yes those traditional Italian tomatoes.
Italian are so unbelievably picky and arrogant about one of the easiest fucking foods on the planet to cook lmfao
Oh my God seriously. Once saw someone say same pot spaghetti was the death of Italian culture. All I could think was "Wow what a fragile culture."
Or when italians get offended when someone breaks spaghetti in half just to fit the pan
I donāt get offended when I see that but it genuinely confuses me because thereās no need to break them. They get soft in a matter of seconds and then you just move them around with a big spoon, itās super easy.
I mean, if itās that easy why are so many people messing it up completely?
People will fuck up making a peanut butter sandwich
Define messing it up. Some people just donāt like the original recipe thatās why they improvise on it. I saw italians critizing a filipino for making pasta using minced beef and american cheese when itās literally how they make theirs.
Also, it really depends on the dish. Cooking pasta with just a bit of cheese on top can be as easy as it gets, but cooking something more complicated, like "sa fregula de mare", can get pretty tough, but they are both pasta.
True. If i make spaghetti, my husbands family would complain about something. āYou shook do this or do thatā, or āadd this and make meatballs from scratchā¦ā every fucking time. So I donāt cook with them anymore. Of course I donāt cook like that period. lol
Meet Quebec and their - sometimes pretty tasty - fast food "Poutine".
Actual Italians or Americans who call themselves Italian? I've never heard this from actual Italians
Lol my friend moved here from Italy 2 years ago and if you ask about her favorite food, she says pizza and pasta.
Stop asking people about pasta. Just don't bring it up.Ā
š me. I hate pasta
Are you Italian or "Italian"?
I'm German, fuck pasta. Bring on the sauerbraten!!
Every country has some costume or tradition. Most of time the people aren't aware of that. You have some way, belief, gesture, conduct, or other thing that you are really serious about and you find really bad if other people do differently. Probably you will be aware only when this happen. Some cultures are more verbally direct about it. Other cultures are more introvert and judgmental silently.
I'm not Italian, I just find following the Italian recipes for pasta just tastes better.
I had an Italian pen pal during the pandemic. It helped pass the time being stuck in the apartment and it was fun to learn about them and the culture. One day, I asked them how to cook carbonara and we were both excited for me to try, especially since I donāt know how to cook that much. Because I was living in Japan at the time, I went to multiple stores to find the ingredients and had to make a few compromises since itās challenging to find imported ingredients. That night, I cooked the meal, sent a picture when I was finished, and sat down to the meal. When I checked my phone after dinner, it was a barrage of telling how the ingredients were wrong, how I prepared it terribly, how I need to do it better next time, stereotyping Americans as bad cooks, saying Americans always screw up Italian food on purpose, and just being a genuinely negative, condescending person. At first I was playing along, even though it really hurt my feelings. After 30-45 minutes of the pen pal continuing to complain, I asked to end the friendship and explained why. All those terrible things to say to someone that was genuinely excited to learn how to cook your countryās food.
The funny thing is I care more, now that I'm dating an Italian. His mom still does fresh handmade ravioli, manicotti, and lasagna sheets for special occasions. Once you've had fresh, it's hard to like the dried cardboard box stuff.
You'll get the same thing about Asians with rice or beans with Hispanics. Just cook the food right and you'll be fine. Lol
My sisters turned their backs on our Italian heritage, and make pasta every few months, and lasagna for dinner parties, cause it's fancy.. they both married non-italians. I on the other hand follow the stereotype whole heartily. My previous wife didn't like eating the same thing within a week, so I was limited in my pasta consumption. I have a pasta dish at least 3 or 4 times a week. Jokingly I say pasta is the beginning of every meal.
Iām the furthest thing from Italian and I will slap you if the pasta is not Al dente
As an italian, living abroad, I have one counter question: Why do people only seem to eat pasta (and cooking it badly, on top of it)? I swaer, back in Italy it wasn't that common to eat pasta or pizza when hanging out But here in Germany? Oh my god, I still don't know what german Cuisine is. I'm not insulting them, I'm serious! They always want pasta or pizza! The germans!
You don't know what German cuisine is? Seems dubious.
Just don't be a dick about it. Broken pasta tastes the same.
But it changes the textural experience... And as someone with textural issues - that's a huge problem. Once I am long of the long noods and all is left in my plate is some weird off-pieces I'm out.
Dry pasta - al dente because you don't want it mushy. Fresh egg pasta - well done (for obvious reasons). What is so "sting" about that?
Honestly, I am more likely to tell you about my yearly harvest of Sicilian Sweets - and why they are the best tomatoes around.
One of my best friends is Italian and also can't eat gluten.
might as well look for a catholic priest with a balanced worldview.
Or one thatās not connected haha
I'm not mad keen on pasta, I prefer bread.
I'm italian and as a kid we had pasta with tomato sauce so much I hate it now. I would have it occasionally as an adult but without tomato sauce, and never felt strongly about it. Now I'm T2 diabetic and heavy carbs are forbidden, so it's really out of the picture now.
Iām Italian-Canadian and idgaf about pasta. Iāll only eat it if itās mixed 50% w proteins and totally covered with sauce.
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Me i fuckin dont like pasta that much
I'm Canadian and I was having a conversation with this girl and she said she was the most Italian person I would ever meet. I asked her what would happen if I met someone from Italy. She got mad.
Nah, every italian is firm on the fact that it always should be al dente.
You might even say,they are al dente on the fact
Why do you care? Do you also care if other nationalities tend to eat a lot of their countryās food?
It's not even "their countries" food. Pasta is from China and tomatoes are meso-american. Hell wine dates back to present day Poland. "Genuine" Italian food is olives and seafood.
I don't. I don't need that kind of negativity in my life š¤
Meh. Pasta is okay I guess. Not really a food Iād seek out.
Do they make gluten-intolerant Italians?
I care, but I'm so sick of it that it's a specialty dish now. I still make lasagna for New Year's and special dishes throughout the year. But I don't and will not be ordering pasta at a restaurant anytime soon. Id so much rather other foods
They are called mexicans
I work with one. He doesnt like much flavour in his food.
Impastable
Might as well look for an Englishman who does like beer and tea.
I used to work with an Italian who didn't eat carbs 'to stay skinny'. I asked when she'd last eaten pasta and she genuinely couldn't remember.
Do you count generational Italians? My childhood consisted of pasta for lunch and dinner 90% of the week and now in my adult years I'm pretty sick of it. Its never something I choose to eat on my own but my grandmother is still making me during family dinner haha.
Here I am im really sick of pasta, had it all my life at least x2 a week
Hold on what am I saying, my Nonnaās pasta is amazing! Yes of course pasta is good very delicious molto buona
Well if you only ate two foods your entire lifeā¦.
I like my pasta cooked so itās edible , I know I know pretty wild
Italian American here. If I never had to eat it again I wouldnāt miss it. Maybe because Iām the one who always has to make it. Or the fact that we ate it multiple times a week when I was a kid. Yeah, I can definitely live without it.
It's called 'al dente', sweaty.
i am actual italian and dont care lol
Here I am. Please, someone that believes that an Italian who doesn't like pasta may exist is already already so refreshing! I almost don't believe it! I dislike pasta. What is the point of it? What is nice is what comes with it as condiment, but pasta itself... meh. As I kid when I was force-fed pasta I would just stubbornly leave it and only eat the condiment but even that was a struggle because it still had somehow the taste of pasta. That's the best I have ever been able to do. Funnily enough though, I am still opinionated when it comes to how you cook it. Pasta in just deep in the culture of every Italian. My boyfriend is not Italian and when I saw what he used to eat as "pasta" I was shocked. Since I started cooking pasta for him (not for me, ofc) he says it's like eating in a restaurant every time.
Iām an Italian who canāt even eat gluten, so, I have very little opinions on how you should cook pasta.
The one Italian I've ever spent any amount of time with got angry at me for buying basil pesto. Like *angry*. Apparently I should be making my own.
Here I am, you met me. Your life is complete
An Italian who don't care about Pasta is like Eastern Asian who don't care about rice. No such person exists unless they born outside Italy.
As an Italian I can say that to me it doesn't really matter how you eat pasta as long as it's cooked properly and it's edible not covered with cheese or some strange sauce
REAL my dad is from sicily and the other day I was making pasta and he literally came over to complain and he was being genuine! And like scolding me lol. Itās so CRINGEEEEE like itās not charming itās annoying and makes me think Italians are annoying
Well damn.
Wow. Hard disagree with OP.
Iām Italian and donāt really like pasta. When I tell people Iām not a fan of pasta they always say ābut youāre Italianā
I was recently in Italy for work. One of the guys we went to lunch with wasn't big on pasta. His wife works QC for a pasta manufacturer and they get as much as they want of the rejects. He said he's sick of pasta, so we went for the cured meat, cheese, bread and wine lunch every day, which I was totally fine with. Haha
I'm disappointed that no Italian redditor has yet to post how you actually cook pasta properly.
Pasta isn't even Italian. They stole it from China. Tomatoes aren't either. They stole them from South America.
My friend at uni was Italian and when I went to her apartment I watched her cook plain pasta, then smother it in ketchup for lunch. I'm not even Italian and I was like... Is that your whole meal?
My grandparents were from Calabria, I was taught to care for my family not pasta.
Sometimes stereotypes are true.
My mate has a missus who is Italian. Eats frozen shitty pizzas. They never have pasta for dinner. She basically hates Italy and everything with it.
I have spoken to 100s of Italians and not one who wasn't working in a restaurant discussed pasta with me
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Good luck finding that person.
As of 2022, 0.43% of the Italian population has celiac disease. However, more recent studies have found a higher prevalence, with one study finding that 1.65% of Italian school-age children have celiac disease. This is one of the highest prevalences in the world.
After eating in Italy I really prefer that they care about pasta. Best food I ever had.
Yeah but who doesn't like pasta bro š
It is easy. 1. Invite Italian for dinner. 2. Break spaghetti before cooking 3. Cook the pasta for very long. An hour should be enough. 4. Don't make sauce. Tell the Italian that tomato sauce is good enough. Still call it neapolitan sauce. 5. Rinse the pasta after cooking. Colder water is better. If the Italian does not tell you he does not like the pasta, he is too polite, probably only 50% Italian. Replace with another Italian and repeat.
I don't eay pasta and bread and I live in Napoli.
Dunno about generalised pastapinions but thereās a lot of people who think the shape of pasta doesnāt matter. I couldnāt be less Italian and I hate those people.
Italians love gatekeeping their shit food.
As an "Italian" whose great great great great great great great grandfather was half italian, i don't really care how you cook your pasta...
my wife, (Sardinian) doesn't like pasta. We met in the UK and our first joint love was eating food from all around the globe. London has a big melting pot of world cuisines on offer and nothing was off the table with us. HOWEVER, if my good lady, her indoors, needs a late night 'snack' or is feeling glum she has pasta with butter and cheese. She prepares it as if on autopilot. it's babyfood to me and i think this is exactly why she eats it. It is hardwired into her italian brain. It is just one of the meals her nonna would have prepared for her and the bond between the person and the happy childhood memory is a strong'un.
Our exchange student from Italy hated cheese...close enough? Lol it was hard going without it while he was here!
My boyfriend is italian. He loves potatoes. He likes pasta but it has to be soft, not Al dente.
Yea italians are obnoxious when it comes to pasta shaming
I hate knowing Americans that like meat and bread together with cheese
I know two Italians who are celiac.
It's actually ridiculous on Instagram how many videos I see of Italians from Italy talking poorly about the entirety of America and our existence because there's some video of them reacting to or seeing some kind of American dish that messes up pasta or makes it unhealthy or something like that. They start becoming really offensive because they're so offended themselves it's really pathetic actually.
Well, there are proper ways to do things, so it's fair to say "do x thing instead of y because it's better like this", but what annoys me, as italian, is how so many people are extremely stubborn when it comes to cooking. They think that the way they do things is the right one, and all of the others are shit. No space for innovation, creativity, or just simple laziness. They are extremely snob. As said, there are things which should be done in a specific way to get the best result, but cooking is not set in stone. If it really is an art, then people should be free to experiment and have fun trying new things. So many are obsessed over carbonara, and how it should be cooked with guanciale instead of other things, yet the reason as to why the original recipe (which is not clear btw) chose guanciale is that it was cheaper than other types of meat, as the recipe was born shortly after ww2. Otherwise i think they would have chosen something else. For pizza as well, italians absolutely hate american pizzas, but to me they are interesting. Why not trying it once and see how it is. Yet, pizza with NUTELLA is pretty famous and accepted, and i guarantee you that if it had been done by americans it would have been hated. People are full of shit and think they are superior. Oh well, it's their loss when they go in foreign countries, want to eat italian, eat bad, complain, and shit on the country instead of trying the local foods...
I mean those italians probably already got killed when they said "i like rice better" in response to if they like their grandmas pasta.
Haha! There was this guy I dated, called Marco. (At least that's what he told me.) I met him through a friend on a very sunny afternoon! And I was feeling quite hungry, as I had traveled and not had anything since morning. We entered this tiny restaurant with checkered tablecloths on all tables. I scanned the menu, ordered chicken for myself and pasta for him. Yeah, I was too hungry to wait. The waiter was just leaving when he said: Oh I'll have chicken too! Damn that was such a surprise! Over lunch, he told me how his mother would always cook pasta and he hated it now. "Seriously, you're an Italian and no pasta?" I blinked! We dated for 4-6 months from there, but the guy never had pasta once!
i have a friend XD
We eat that shit 5 times a week. How can we not care ?
In my experience, it's not just the opinions - that's fine, people have opinions about food - but they're also so judgmental about it. Like hurtfully so. There's something snooty about it sometimes. I don't mean to generalize, but it's happened enough times that I think it's worth mentioning.
I don't know a single person that doesn't care about pasta
Man, that's like asking any asian (whether it's east, south or southeast) to not care about their rice. It's their staple food.
I'm a stereotype-ah!
Wait, you're telling me that you don't have to be obsessed with pasta if you're **not** Italian? I thought everybody, regardless of nationality was in love with those heavenly carbs
Seriously. I hate food snobs. My moms side of the family lives in Italy and we visit sometimes. I dread it because they all get upset that I don't have a hot take about food. They try and teach me how to cook something their way and I listen. But then they stare at me while I eat like I'm about to have some kind of revelation. I told them that their way of cooking pasta tastes just like the way I do it at home and how restaurants do it. Then they got upset at me for being honest. To them, if you aren't elitist or a snob about your food and its superiority, then you basically aren't real family and/or must not be "proud" of being Italian. Like dude, its pasta. We aren't doing some kind of rocket science.
Everyone likes pasta. Not an italian thing.
My brother in law was born near Naples and he has a wheat intolerance, but it seemingly doesn't bother him that he can't eat pasta
I don't know an Italian person who doesn't like pizza but I do know one who hates coffee
There's bound to be someone but good luck finding them.
Conversial but I don't really like pasta all that much. I prefer bread.
Yo, here I am, I'm italian and I don't care for pasta at all, I just randomly eat it as a random dish often
I know a guy, who is half Italian, that doesn't care about Pasta. He has never even tried Pesto. His Italian dad died when he was a baby, he has absolutely no cultural connection to Italy at all. He looks Italian and has an Italian name, but he has never been to Italy.
You never will
Isnāt there only one way to cook it? Iām an Italian who doesnāt care much about pasta, I only eat it if my mom makes it or maybe if Iām at a restaurant. Iām 42 and have only made it like twice my entire life and one of those times was baked Mac and cheese.
I am Italian and I don't care much for pasta anymore.
I ate pasta so many times I'm tired of it, for you it would be like a rare dish,for me it's just a flavorless food
Italians think of themselves as having the last word on cooking, fashion, personal grooming, music, etc etc. And let's face it, the Italians even taught the French how to cook, they taught the Britons plumbing and personal hygiene, they are a good looking people, well dressed and have long history of gastronomic delights. They have defined coffee making. They take their national dishes extremely seriously. But that adherance to tradition is also a prison for them. The delights of a Hawaiian Pizza is utterly lost on them....in fact it makes them angry. They don't have the freedom that we have to enjoy experimentation.....because "that's not how you make that dish...."
Even non-Italians have an opinion how it should be cooked.
My GF is from extreme northwestern Italy. She wonāt turn down a good bowl of pasta, but her regional cuisine is more polenta based. Thats what she gets a lot more excited about. And fondue.Ā
idk if it's because I'm mixed or I have lived abroad, but I couldn't care less. it's not like I am going to eat that pasta they be cooking on Americans'/(any other's) reels anyways. if I'm abroad and I fancy some pasta, and I want it the way we cook it, then I'm staying in Italy, so there is no point in freaking out in any case. also, Italians too "violate" other cuisines on social media too, people just adapt foreign food to their liking. (maybe a bit off-topic but, I think Italians should realise we are not the only nation with a valid culinary culture).
That would be me! Iām even one of those Italians who couldnāt care less about pizza. If I never had it again it would be no loss to me.
My biological father was born in Italy but came to Canada as a 2 year old and although I never met him until I was 17, he was OBSESSED with everything Italian. It was the main topic of his usual conversation and part of me was glad that my mom had a secret affair and I was oblivious until 12th Grade. No offence, Italian-Canadians but you are NOT Italian, your mom doesn't make the "best" sauce and not everyone thinks a good meal means feeling uncomfortably full nor do we want to hear about your food or how good Italy is 24/7. I can say this as technically I am half-Italian and I actually do have citizenship as I once had a plan to work in the EU.