Eating Spaghetti with a Spoon

The New York Times sat down with the owners of three Manhattan Italian restaurants to discuss the correct way to eat pasta. They mostly agreed on a few rules: you don't put cheese on a seafood-based dish, you don't break pasta before cooking it, and you don't eat spaghetti with a spoon.

As to the use of a fork plus a spoon for eating pasta, all those at the table were adamant. Spoons are for children, amateurs and people with bad table manners in general.

Egi Maccioni recalled her childhood days of eating pasta. ''My grandparents spent hours teaching me how to eat pasta without using a spoon, how to twirl my fork so that not a strand of spaghetti would be hanging down as I lifted that fork to my mouth.''

Does anyone really ever eat spaghetti with a spoon? The article begins with 1975 advice from Elizabeth Post recommending it, but I'd never heard that before. How you do eat spaghetti? Link -via reddit

(Image credit: Flickr user Dèsirèe Tonus)

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After I learned that my Italian-American friend from Long Island cut her spaghetti to eat it, I never again bothered with the fork-and-spoon method for eating spaghetti. Although I never bothered with it prior, I do like to know what's "proper" at least. It's a weakness.

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No, I meant Elizabeth, as the linked article says. She is Emily Post's granddaughter-in-law, and took over her column in the '60s, I believe. When Elizabeth retired, Peggy Post took over.

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Elizabeth Post?? Did you mean to say EMILY POST??

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Born and raised on the old North Side of Syracuse, it was a no-no to use a spoon to eat spaghetti. Still use fork only after all these years.

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I was going to mention I typically eat salad with chopsticks too but didn't want to sound like a snob! It makes no sense to massacre lettuce while trying to stab at it with a fork, especially the baby lettuce mixes.

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