Please Don't Break The Pasta - The View From My Italian Kitchen

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Benvenuti! I hope you enjoy il panorama dalla mia cucina Italiana -- "the view from my Italian kitchen,"-- where I indulge my passion for Italian food and cooking. From here, I share some thoughts and ideas on food, as well as recipes and restaurant reviews, notes on travel, a few garnishes from a lifetime in the entertainment industry, and an occasional rant on life in general..You can help by becoming a follower. I'd really like to know who you are and what your thoughts are on what I'm doing. Every great leader needs followers and if I am ever to achieve my goal of becoming the next great leader of the Italian culinary world :-) I need followers! Grazie mille!

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Please Don't Break the Pasta

“Every Time You Break The Pasta An Italian Cook Cries.” Do you remember these famous “cause and effect” sayings: “Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings” or “Every time a child says 'I don't believe in fairies' there is a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead”? Or that old standard, “step on a crack, break your mother's back”? Well, I've got a new one for you: “Every time you break the pasta an Italian cook cries.” For some unfathomable reason, American cooks love to take a handful of innocent, inoffensive spaghetti and viciously snap it in half before throwing it into a pot of boiling water. Apparently they don't realize that under such torture spaghetti emits a high-pitched scream that can only be heard by Italians. You don't believe me? I was watching an episode of “Chopped” when some bozo thoughtlessly broke the spaghetti in half. Scott Conant and I both visibly winced and I said to my wife, “Scott's gonna call him on that one.” Sure enough, he did. And the pasta abuser wound up losing, too. Folks, don't break the spaghetti. And don't ask me why you shouldn't break the spaghetti because I don't know why you shouldn't break the spaghetti. All I know is that you shouldn’t. It's an Italian thing. (Actually, I do know why. I'll get to it in a minute.) I was at the home of a friend of a friend and I was in the kitchen as dinner was being prepared. I almost came out of my chair when I saw the cook grasp a bunch of spaghetti in both hands. Everybody must have thought I'd gone pazzo when I shouted, “DON'T!” as she was about to snap it half. The cook looked at me like I'd grown a third eye and said, “We always cook it that way.” That's when I also learned that they never salt the cooking water and that they add oil to it. I just left the kitchen, weeping. Don't break the pasta. Some Italians believe it's bad luck. Most agree it's bad manners and any Italian cook will tell you it's bad technique. The Chinese believe long noodles represent long life. You wanna risk half your life? In case you think I'm parlare dal mio culo, allow me to cite some examples: besides the aforementioned anti-breakage chef Scott Conant, Mario Batali has gone on record as saying that breaking pasta is an insult to all those nonne who spent decades perfecting their long, thin noodles, engineered to hold the sauce in just the right way. The late queen of the Italian kitchen Marcella Hazan, in her bestselling “The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking,” says, "Do not break up spaghetti or any other long pasta into smaller pieces." Another doyenne of the Italian kitchen, Lidia Bastianich, emphatically commands, “Do not break your pasta (noodle types like spaghetti, linguini, etc) before adding it to a pot of boiling water. It’s bad luck!” The folks at Real Simple unequivocally state, “Don't break pasta to fit it in the pot. Let the ends stick out until the submerged sections soften, about 1 minute. Then stir to bend the pasta and push it underwater.” Under the heading “Pasta Cooking Basics” the authorities at AllRecipes.com say, “let spaghetti and long strands soften for a minute before stirring. Don’t break pasta in half.” Food writer Dominic Armato lays out the “Ten Commandments of Dry Pasta” on his Skillet Doux website. Here's number VI – “Thou Salt Not Break The Pasta. I have absolutely no logical reason why. I just know you don't do it. You don't do it. It's a cardinal sin. If your pasta doesn't fit in your pot......well......get a bigger pot.” The Epicurean Table states, “never break long pasta to fit into the pan. Apply gentle pressure as the pasta softens and bend the strands. Wait a few moments and give a stir.” Had enough, miscreant pasta breakers? Or shall I continue flagellating you with an unbroken wet noodle until you repent of your evil ways? I know why a lot of people break pasta. The sad thing is they don't have to. It's a rookie cooking move. People who break pasta do so for two reasons: one, they think it fits better in the pot and two, they think it's easier to eat after it's cooked. Addressing the second excuse first, let me be brutally honest: if you can't handle eating long pasta without breaking it or cutting it, may I respectfully suggest “SpaghettiOs?” C'mon! Only Italian children have their spaghetti broken or cut for them. And then only until they're about five years of age. After that they're expected to eat like adults, and adults never cut or break their long pasta. It is the ultimate breach of etiquette. That's why pseudo-Italian restaurants provide amateur eaters with those stupid big spoons. Even sitting there like an infant using a spoon to help you twirl the strands onto your fork is preferable to cutting it up. Breaking or cutting long pasta just isn't done, either before or after cooking. And as far as fitting the pot goes, just learn how to cook. Okay, I get it. An average strand of spaghetti is just a smidge over ten inches long. The interior diameter of an average five-quart pot measures just under ten inches. Something's gotta give, right? So you bust up the spaghetti into five-inch pieces, right? So that they fit into the pot, right? WRONG! As the people cited in the earlier paragraph correctly instruct, put the pasta into the pot whole and unbroken. Sure the stuff is gonna stick out of the pot a little bit – for about thirty seconds. After that the noodles will have softened enough that a little gentle stirring will bring them all together into the pot nice and neat. Everything fits and no breaking required. Do you think Italian pasta manufacturers are stupid. Do you suppose they make pasta ten inches long just so that you can bust it into five-inch pieces? They call it “long pasta” for a reason. And if you don't want or like it long, buy short pasta! Leave the long stuff alone! Uffa! Hey, it's a free country. And as Julia Child famously said, “If you're alone in the kitchen.......who's going to know.” Break the pasta in half. It's your dish. Heck, Barilla markets a pre-cut spaghetti called “Fideo.” It's about 3/4-inch long. That ought to fit in your pot and on your fork. And Mueller's wimps out with something called "Pot-Sized" pasta. Whatever. But if you want to prepare and enjoy spaghetti, linguine, and other long pastas the way they are intended to be prepared and enjoyed, leave them in their natural form. Don't break the pasta. Grazie. Buon appetito! Posted by at 2:17 PM Labels: Celebrity Chefs, Cooking Tips and Techniques, Etiquette, Italian Cooking and Dining, Italian Culture, Italian Food, Pasta

23 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 20, 2015 at 5:24 PM

    Absolutely agree and thinking what this poor pasta did to people that they have to break it???

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    1. UnknownApril 4, 2020 at 10:38 PM

      Figured done for size of pot cooking it in. Enjoy twirling in fork, and getting more sauce of coarse. Pops never broke it. Mom did always. Funny.

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  2. kelzannApril 29, 2016 at 7:48 PM

    Love, love LOVE!! I've been arguing with my husband about this for years...and I have been telling him over and over that you "just don't" Thanks for giving me a great, cheeky article to read to him about it :)

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  3. UnknownFebruary 15, 2017 at 8:15 PM

    thank you for settling an argument I was just having with my boyfriend. I was raised to believe that breaking pasta is sacrilege, as well as baaaaad luck. Personally, on the few occasions I've been forced to choke it down as a guest in other people's homes, I found it to be very starchy, & unpalatable (possibly not so much due to the breakage, as the fact that anyone who would dare break pasta is most certainly a terrible cook, & probably doesn't use enough water in the cooking pot, &/or overcooks it!) regardless, blech! Ptuey! Never trust a pasta breaker.

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  4. UnknownMay 5, 2017 at 12:34 PM

    I just watched an episode of King of Queens and just saw Remini break a pack over the pot.Thanks to this article I realized I have gladly been doing it right and I cut the cooked pasta for my kids until they turned 5. Phew!

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  5. Chris SenneffMarch 2, 2018 at 10:19 AM

    Don't care. lol My wife cooks everything but the pasta dishes in our house and I break the pasta every time and will until I die. 5"-6" pasta noodles is how I like it. They can make pasta noodles as long as they want and I'll still break them into 5"-6" long strands. I revel in your self-righteous misery! Muwahahaha :)

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    1. Ron JamesMarch 2, 2018 at 4:17 PM

      I hope you can sleep at night, you sadist! :-p :-)

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  6. AnonymousAugust 8, 2019 at 8:20 AM

    when you break the spaghetti it is no longer spaghetti but chef boy ar dee quality. You are lucky Julius Caesar is still not around or you would be publicly flogged and placed in the stock for the public to ridicule. posted by an Italian.

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    1. AnonymousJuly 8, 2022 at 9:17 PM

      Responded to by an Italian. Break it if you want. I never do, unless I need to eat on the go. 5,000 calorie a day intake means I am almost always eating (only 165 pounds).Why do so many people care about what strangers do in their own homes?

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    2. AnonymousJanuary 18, 2024 at 10:42 PM

      It doesn’t change the pasta It’s just over sensitive Italians wanting to yell at something There is no way that two halves of the same thing is not 99.9999999% the same as when the two halves are put together The components don’t change It makes no difference

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  7. Angie 1997November 30, 2020 at 8:34 PM

    For my four Italian immigrant grandparents, who immigrated in here in the mid 1920's, it was gravy. Also, when they talked about pasta in general it was macaroni, not pasta. It wasn't until the late 70's, when I was nineteen, did I start saying tomato sauce & pasta to sound like my non-Italian friends. I don't know why it was macaroni instead of pasta, but I was told once about gravy. My nonna (my mom's mom) corrected me, when I once corrected her on her terminology for tomato sauce. She looked at the tomato sauce in her big pot, that was cooking slowly, for hours, on her stove top, and said "No. That is gravy. That is not sauce. A sauce is different from gravy. Gravy I put meats into it & I cook it real slow. Marinara are a sauces, which are quickly made." Please understand that every region of Italy has different types of food. Just like we do in the states. One thing that is standard, as it is for most European countries, the ingredients are super fresh making the food delicious.

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  8. Georgia BloggerAugust 19, 2021 at 6:07 AM

    I can relate to this post so much! What do you think of this: villaromanaliverpool.co.uk

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    1. AnonymousJuly 8, 2022 at 9:15 PM

      The blackened cheese on their homepage made me gag and to screenshot the name so I never go there. Cheese should NEVER be cooked past a light golden color. The big US pizza guys always burn theirs, as does almost every Italian-American ristoranté.

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  9. MG42February 16, 2022 at 9:11 PM

    One reason why my dad thinks you should break the pasta is "it cooks evenly" as if 25-30 seconds is going to make half of your patsa softer than the other half. Thankfully, me, my brother, and my mother (the only one's in the family who cook right) know better than to break it

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    1. AnonymousJanuary 18, 2024 at 10:46 PM

      When you are only cooking the pasta for ten minutes 30 seconds is a 5% difference Certainly that will make the ends of the pasta 5% harder than the remainder That’s just simple math So for people saying it makes no difference What about the argument that breaking pasta in half makes no difference ? Either way it’s not being done properly The instructions say to boil the pasta for 10-12 minutes ALL of the pasta Not to leave an inch of it sticking out and clearly not being cooked for 30-45 seconds Sorry but I just think breaking it in half changes the pasta less than cooking it unevenly

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  10. StackpoolJune 27, 2022 at 7:18 PM

    I've just got out of the longest Twitter DM conversation I think I've ever had because of this subject and I made all the points you raised, so I'm happy that I fought our corner.However, I do have a kitchen hack that should satisfy both camps. Take it or leave it...As you're heating the water up, lay the spaghetti across the saucepan. By the time the water is boiling, the spaghetti will be soft enough to simply bend it into the pan, no problems, and no effect upon the finished product.If that's too much work for recidivist spaghetti-breakers, maybe they oughtta try these: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/E-cAAOSwuU9dRPXg/s-l640.jpg

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  11. AnonymousJuly 8, 2022 at 9:11 PM

    I don’t care what you say, keep you salt out of the water!! Especially if you are using a tomato sauce. Tomatoes are extremely high in sodium without tasting like salt, which is a flavor I very much dislike.I personally never break my pasta, but… Break it if you want. There is no mystical force that exists to cause you bad luck. As far as pasta etiquette, that really only matters to the pretentious. Shorter noodles don’t affect the sauce retention. They can be eaten much quicker without making a mess at all. I want my last bite to be just as yummy as the first hot bite.“If it is fun and it don’t hurt no one, why not!?” - Grand-mah Naked Mole Rat (written by Mo Willems)

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  12. AnonymousJuly 8, 2022 at 9:20 PM

    I call it macaroni as well and everyone looks at me and says stupid stuff like, “I don’t want Kraft.” Pasta is a super broad term. Spaghetti is a very specific shape of a macaroni pasta. It’s that simple. People can track these dog breeds but think all pasta is the same. Love me some Glass noodles, a non-macaroni pasta.

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  13. AnonymousJuly 8, 2022 at 9:27 PM

    One more note…In a French kitchen, you never make gravy, you make sauces.The five mother sauces include béchamel, veloute, espangole, hollandaise, and tomato sauce.Every sauce falls into one of the five mother sauce categories. Which means there are only variations of 5 sauces.

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  14. AnonymousOctober 29, 2022 at 6:09 PM

    short strands: for a thermos presentation in grade school lunchbox

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  15. AnonymousMarch 29, 2023 at 12:50 PM

    Thanks for this! I needed empathy and you gave it to me. My wife and I just ate at an “Italian” restaurant that served us fettuccine with broken pasta! 3 inches long. I’m still bothered by it.

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  16. AnonymousAugust 2, 2023 at 7:45 AM

    I break spaghetti. Fight me.

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  17. Ashlee RolfsonOctober 18, 2023 at 11:21 PM

    Thank you for sharing your culinary expertise, and I'm excited to explore more of your recipes in the future. If you ever want to enhance your cooking experiences with some great deals, "New Born Baby Clothes" is a resource worth checking out.

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