unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6930|PNW

It really sucks that a 19yo dude lost his feet or whatever to some weird infection he got from bad noodles, but can I please stop being reminded every hour with like four different sources in a row on my phone's feed? I'm sure there's other strange tragedies and human horror for me to not click the thumbnails of.

Within, FDA reminder that you don't need to let food cool off before you put it in the fridge. You'd think this is obvious, but I've actually met people who think food should be cooled off before it goes into the fridge. I have no idea how that started. Maybe prep steps for certain baking recipes.
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+796|6843|United States of America
I distinctly remember being told in some bio-adjacent class that some food (chili or a soup or something?) needs to cool before refrigeration otherwise there is a risk of botulinum toxin in it. I do still let things cool anyway just to avoid excess condensation, but I guess good to know if I don't have the time to wait.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6930|PNW

I guess that justifies all the food handling info panels you can stick to your fridge. Every household should have one so they don't poison visitors.

I would like a confirmation on the chili/soup thing. There's people (including some chefs) saying you have to wait for various foods, and others citing 'food science' calling it an old wives tale. It seems very dubious to me that a container of hot spaghetti sauce will warm up the carton of milk in a fridge unless you put the carton directly inside of the container or something.

googling to support arguments:
https://eatnorth.com/katelyn-marchyshyn … -it-fridge
https://www.aarp.org/home-garden/housin … ting_.html
https://culinarylore.com/food-science:l … igerating/
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+796|6843|United States of America
I'll look when I get home, but I didn't mean to imply any other items in the fridge are at risk. The scope would be limited purely to the hot, not yet cooled, thing.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3878
Where. Is. My. Ukraine. Facebook. Filter?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6930|PNW

DesertFox- wrote:

I didn't mean to imply any other items in the fridge are at risk.
of course, of course. that's just one of the things people sometimes say: you'll make the milk spoil.

like, say what?
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+796|6843|United States of America
I learned today there's a subset of people on the internet who will tut-tut someone for breaking spaghetti while cooking it, apparently with the argument that you "can't twirl it around your fork anymore", which isn't even a real problem if you only break it in half and not smash the shit out of it for some reason. Weird.
uziq
Member
+492|3611
'subset of people on the internet' ... do you mean italians? lmao. and i presume italian-americans who want to stress their link to the 'old country'.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3878
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3611
haha. yeah that's really not an 'online' thing. that's an entire culture and its culinary customs.
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+796|6843|United States of America
I dunno the ethnic background, but probably a bunch of pretentious foodie types as well.
uziq
Member
+492|3611
yeah you're probably right. a lot of people get over-enthusiastic about that stuff and enforce culture mores when there's no need.

like if i'm not around any asian people, i am not going to respect some fucking finicky 'rules' about chopstick use or etiquette about turning away from my 'elders' whenever i sip a drink or whatever.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6930|PNW

According to a bunch of pasta videos I've seen with old Italian chefs, a lot of dried spaghetti is made to be easily snapped at the juncture where they were dried over a rod, if you want shorter spaghetti. Quick squeeze, break. But snapping a bundle of 18" long spaghettis in two for the reason that you can't otherwise "fit it in a pot," very unnecessary and does give you an unsatisfying fork twirl. Get your water to a boil first and it just twirls down in an instant. No need for salt.* Or olive oil to "avoid sticking," that kind of inhibits the spaghetti's ability to absorb tomato sauce.

This is one of those cases where you can literally do it wrong, unlike with pizza and its pretentious ingredient gatekeeping. My pizza, my pineapple. I'll even put bananas on it if I want, what are you going to do about it.

I know there's usually a lot of flex when it comes to blundering tourists and the frankly exhaustive lists of etiquette rules (Japan's rep for this I think gets a bit bloated overseas), but I think I'd still rather freshen up on various food etiquettes so I didn't stand out as much as a visitor.

Maybe told this c s b once or twice or thrice over the past decade+, but an old Asian granny once walked over and personally stirred my restaurant bibimbap (I think it was?) rather than suffer watching me eat it section by section. I didn't even feel put upon, more treated to a show. Reminded me of my own grandmother and her house rules. I even thanked her for the insight. She probably felt like she was doing a favor-slash-good-deed so maybe that made her day. Amazing, unforgettable experience regardless, 5 stars.

*or salt, plenty of instructionals say to anyway.
uziq
Member
+492|3611
most all italian pasta, if you're boiling it from ready-made pasta, tastes better with salted water. believe the common guidance is to get it tasting like seawater first. i'd recommend adding it for taste purposes; forget fealty to some supposed 'cultural' rule.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6930|PNW

Salt makes a lot of things "taste better." Ancient culinary fact.

I'm less of a stickler for the "no salt" rule for noodle boiling, your noodles your rules and all that. But tomato sauce itself already has a plenty of sodium (like 1200 mg per cup) and you can always add to taste. I don't think salt or no salt for the noodle cooking process is going to be easily detected when the noodle is swimming in sauce.

Spaghetti is never going to be The Healthy Choice, so handwringing over that aspect (high sodium!), over a meal you shouldn't eat frequently, rather pointless I think.

Even the olive oil in your noodles thing I've seen exceptions to by experienced Italian chefs, just stressing that you'll change the noodle so just be aware of what the results are going to be. The "right way to cook pasta" obsessives I think, like grammar nazis, aren't as knowledgeable at their hobby as they'd like to think.
uziq
Member
+492|3611
i'm pretty sure every chef recommends adding salt to pasta-boiling water.

noodles are very commonly not made from simple durum/semolina/wheat so it makes sense that salt would affect it differently. wouldn't want to salt egg noodles, for instance. definitely wouldn't with glass noodles or a dish that was going to marinade later in soy/sesame, etc. ditto have seen lots of convincing arguments against salting certain rice-based dishes, depending on the extra ingredients.

tomato sauce has sodium? well, two caveats: fresh tomatoes, no, very little in fact, and many people make their own sauces from fresh ingredients base. processed food obviously has shit-loads of salt, but that doesn't strike me as a very good excuse for having shitty-tasting pasta: "there's enough salt in my sauce jar anyway". secondly, like half of all pasta-based dishes aren't tomato based. it really depends on so many things.

i always salt my pasta anyway. life is too fucking short to be worrying about comparatively healthy pasta-based dishes.

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-26 15:34:43)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6930|PNW

A spaghetti sauce, I should specify in this instance, is a battery of ingredients of which salt is one. For noodle water, I've generally seen it either be like seawater, or no salt at all both have come out fine imo with a flavorful sauce doing most of the work. I've been told both are fine (I am not a trained chef, so take my advice with a *COUGH* grain of salt). Most of of your water salt going to be discarded with the water anyway so nobody should be worrying about that too much for health reasons or whatever. Salt to taste.

Salt issue aside (like four words out of a multiple paragraph post), I'd like to stress that you don't need the oil to stop noodles from sticking together. That just makes them not (easily) take up the sauce. Also save your pasta water. You can do cool stuff with it. Add a bit to your spaghetti sauce, or save in a jug for later recipes.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6930|PNW

I will add to all this that a one-pot pasta is probably one of the quickest and least finnicky ways you could go about using spaghetti noodles. Even Macbeth shouldn't think it's too much of a pain.
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+796|6843|United States of America
I still don't get it the elitism per one of the sources I saw with "the art of eating spaghetti". How "unsatisfying" is twirling a 9 inch strand of spaghetti, that still fits around a fork a few times, versus a full length one? I call bullshit.
uziq
Member
+492|3611
tbh no americans should be lecturing anyone about table manners or etiquette. y’all eat like savages. i will never not be amazed when i share a dinner table with an american.

i dated a ‘sophisticated’ hamptons girl who cut up her food and switched to forking everything into her mouth. i could forgive that in a new york taxi driver getting breakfast at a diner in a hurry. the fuck is it with americans cutting up their food and then switching to using the fork as a spoon for everything?!?
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6930|PNW

Sure there's mock offense, but people will break your 9" clump of spaghetti in half solely for the reason that it better "fits" into a pot. At a certain point you might as well try twirling a macaroni. Just wait for the water to boil first, and the noodles will fit. Not hard.

Getting a forkful of noodle clumped with a bunch of sauce is part of the spaghetti enjoyment. Short, oily noodles that you have to shovel into your mouth because there's no other efficient way to pick them up, you really are missing out.
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+796|6843|United States of America
I learned came across the European method a few years ago and briefly tried it, but it feels too weird to me. I dunno if my right hand is just useless, but I have way more control holding a knife in my left while cutting, then switching to the fork to eat. It does seem another common topic of culinary concern trolling on the internet, though.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Sure there's mock offense, but people will break your 9" clump of spaghetti in half solely for the reason that it better "fits" into a pot. At a certain point you might as well try twirling a macaroni. Just wait for the water to boil first, and the noodles will fit. Not hard.

Getting a forkful of noodle clumped with a bunch of sauce is part of the spaghetti enjoyment. Short, oily noodles that you have to shovel into your mouth because there's no other efficient way to pick them up, you really are missing out.
This comment is just baffling because it doesn't even describe what's happening. The (salted) water is at a strong boil. There's no oil in it. Literally the only difference for spaghetti is it is half the size. You can still twirl it like a fancy boy. Maybe you should go for a cartoon-esque one giant noodle and twirl the hell out of that?
uziq
Member
+492|3611
i don’t know why anyone would put oil in boiling pasta. seems like a different misconception entirely. i guess to stop the pasta sticking together or sticking to the pan? but it’s fine to just … stir pasta noodles as they boil. it’s not like rice where you get a better texture if you let it sit. very confusing.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6930|PNW

DesertFox- wrote:

This comment is just baffling because it doesn't even describe what's happening. The (salted) water is at a strong boil. There's no oil in it. Literally the only difference for spaghetti is it is half the size. You can still twirl it like a fancy boy. Maybe you should go for a cartoon-esque one giant noodle and twirl the hell out of that?
Who said anything about cartoonesque noodles? What is baffling exactly? I didn't say you were putting oil in it. I was reiterating my previous comments: tons of people, including some chefs, put oil in spaghetti noodle water to "keep it from clumping," wholly unnecessary, yet very persistent method. Gordon Ramsay puts oil in his spaghetti water. My spaghetti noodles don't clump, no oil needed. *shrug* And if you break them up because you like them short, your spaghetti your rules. Don't let the the internet and Italian memes boss you around I guess.

If anything is cartoonesque, it's people trying to eat a plate of 4.5", slicked-up spaghetti noodle totally impervious to any of the sauce. Sad panda, etc.
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+796|6843|United States of America
No one's on the oil train here, so it's weird that criticism is being lumped in with the rest of it. The cartoon comment the logical end to whoever has this bug up their butt about long noodles. But again, I reiterate, no one is making "short" noodles here. A spaghetti noodle isn't a Prince Rupert's drop that shatters into a thousand pieces. You get... two.

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