I have recently discovered “pot size” spaghetti - spaghetti boxed in 5" lengths instead of 10" . Online I can see that most major pasta companies offer it. Here in Cleveburg I use Giant Eagle’s store brand. Same price as ordinary pasta.
The packaging is superb. No more prying glued flaps open. A lengthwise zipper top that really works. Two flaps open to form a chute that gently leads the pasta horizontally to the water. I know it isn’t all that difficult to break pasta but this is just one little nicety that makes it easier.
Some Newman’s Sockarooni sauce and a bunch of Giant Eagle meatballs and it’s a nice quick, tasty meal. By the way, for others in NE Ohio, the Giant Eagle meat counter meatballs cannot be beaten. Better then grandma’s.
I noticed that yesterday while picking up a box of Barilla.
I don’t know…I mean, really, I get the convenience, but it’s not rocket science breaking your own and fanning it into a pot of boiling salted water with a dash of olive oil. Seems to me like the manufacturer is looking to make a quick buck,.
C’est la capitalisme, I suppose. People will pay absurd premiums just for a little extra convenience. Just look at the price of pre-chopped veggies or lettuce/cabbage at the store.
I hate short strands of thin noodles except in chicken noodle soup where you eat them on a spoon. But there’s always a market for even the littlest extra convenience, and I think it’s certainly good business to give your customers what they want. I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss it as a “quick buck.” For all I know, the price is the same and the money comes from driving sales from other brands which don’t offer that shape. (I have no idea, having never seen these in the store. Lot of the basic pasta shapes tend to be sold at the same price per pound, from what I’ve seen around here.) But even if it’s a little extra, why not?
I like to snap all my rigatoni in half with a brisk CRACK. If I lay them all out on the kitchen table in front of me I can get a real rhythm going, like the Keith Moon of pasta.
That article is some stupid shit — but I understand that writers can have more deadlines than they have inspirations. Italian cooking is a separate thing from Catholicism, and proclamations about 5” spaghetti being heresy are not something I want to read.
If Marcella Hazan says don’t do it, then that’s good enough for me.
That said, I don’t have a drop of Italian in me (so far as I know), but the joy of spaghetti to me is that texture you get biting into all the pasta wrapped around the fork. It doesn’t even have to have anything more than a little butter or oil on it. There’s something just really nice about the way it feels in the mouth and breaks up under your teeth, that you don’t quite get when you break it up into pieces or otherwise cut it. Same with Asian noodles – I tend to prefer them longer rather than shorter (but it depends on the thickness of the noodle.)
Seek thee out, Chitarra Pasta from Rustichella d’Abruzzo, and make a simple and delicious Spaghetti Alla Chitarra, or any other recipe that calls for long pasta. Simply sublime.
I’m not a huge pasta lover but there is something about that specific type of pasta that I absolutely love.
Interesting. I’ll have a look out for chitarra pasta. Looks like something I would enjoy. Right now, or I should say for the past decade, my favorite “spaghetti-type” shape is bucatini, not just with the classic amatraciana, but with any simple sauces, like just olive oil & anchovies (and a bit of garlic and red pepper flakes, of course), where the texture really can stand out and the simple sauce flavors the pasta without overwhelming it.
I break my angel hair in half. Those who don’t like it needn’t accept invitations to sketty dinners at my house. If it cost the same per pound, I’d buy the short stuff, but I’m not paying extra for something I can do myself for negligible effort.
My wife is of Italian heritage swears by the ever mysterious (to me) code of pasta shape dictates the pasta dish (and vice versa). She’s never wrong about pasta (or anything else, really), but my favorite and getting harder to find around here (why?!), remains the chitarra.
