Wednesday Is Prince Spaghetti Day

[rp2813]

Joe, that's the one, only you have it backwards.  It's on West San Carlos (actually it's already Stevens Creek where they are) near the freeway.

 

They serve a pretty good burger there too, I hear, but that's not why I go there.

 

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .

 

 

 

 

 

[tomturbomatic]

In the 80s, I showed a friend my 1954 Frigidaire Imperial range with the deep well. He remembered a neighbor with a range like it and how she used to make "gravy" in the deep well for Sunday dinner. The gravy was tomato sauce for the Italian family. I had never heard gravy used that way before.

 

[appnut]

The gravy was tomato sauce for the Italian family. I had nev

I have a couple of times.  It took me a while to figure out they were really referring to what we know as pasta or tomato sauce and not what we know as gravy. 

 

[toploader55]

Gravy vs. Sawze.

I've heard both.

Worcester Ma., I've heard women refer to Pasta Tomato Sauce as Gravy.

In NJ where I am from it was "Sawze".

 

[launderess]

Gravy vs Sauce

Is a huge source for arguement amoung Italian-Americans, well at least in the NYC metro area.

To some "gravy" refers to what one makes from meat drippings, flour and seasonings which can be either brown or white, thus certainly *not* something made from tomatos. However as many Italian-American dishes have little or nothing to do with Italy (American pizza is a famous example) the heavy meat (often ground) laden "sauces" in some eyes do qualify as "gravy".

Then there is the differences in how pasta dishes are normally served in Italy versus America. Most Italians do not serve pasta drowned in sauce the way many Americans (especially those not of Italian descent)seem to prefer. The Italian way "sauce" is merely a light thing that brings but not over powers whatever meat, fish, shellfish, spices etc that are used in the making, and of course shouldn't overwhelm the pasta itself. What would be the point of making all those excellent home and other versions of pasta only to have it served swimming in sauce?

 

[launderess]

This Time We Didn't Forget The Gravy

*LOL*

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[frigilux]

Gravy vs. Sauce: My mom used to go ballistic when people referred to her tomato-based meat sauce (pork + Italian sausage chunks + small beef meatballs) as "gravy". "Itsa salsa, notta gravy!!"

And as Launderess has noted, she also scoffed at heavy, greasy, American pizzas. Red sauces were doled out sparingly, so as not to overpower the pasta. She couldn't believe how much sauce Americans put on their spaghetti, rigatoni, etc. And god forbid anyone should ever cut their spaghetti!

 

[rp2813]

Sauce vs Gravy, Knife vs Spoon

The amount of sauce might be a regional thing.  My paternal grandparents were both Calabrese and sauce was generously applied to any pasta dish.  I think the further north you go, the less sauce you'll encounter.  By the time you hit Switzerland, there's almost no sauce at all.

 

I have never heard sauce referred to as gravy except on The Sopranos.

 

On the Italian side of my family, cutting the pasta or using a spoon to twirl it were both considered very bad form.

 

 

 

[jeffg]

No spoon?

Tablespoons were always set at our table for long pastas. I don't see how it's worse form to use a spoon rather than slurp spaghetti like infants do.

 

[rp2813]

Slurping

LOL!  That reminds me of when my mom, who was always making friends with people, ran into some Japanese college students at the grocery store one day and invited them over for spaghetti.  I think there were three or four of them.  As soon as the pasta was served up, as Ross Perot would say, there was this giant slurping sound coming from one side of the table!

 

[launderess]

Gravy - Sopranos

One thinks the whole "gravy vs sauce" debate may be a East Coast sort of thing, and or at least moved about from there. Have lots of Italian-American friends from Booklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx who call it "gravy". And yes, these are persons only one or two generations removed from Italy.

Regarding the Sopranos, you don't know fun until you've watched that show with Italians, Sicilians, and Neapolitans (no, they are not all the same), who crack up at how some of the cast members and Italian Americans in general "ruin" their language. The famous Tony Soprano "gabagool" (capicola ham)sets the aforementioned laughing in stitches.

 

[frigilux]

Using a spoon to help wind long pasta around a fork is considered "working class" table manners. I was allowed to use a spoon until I was about 10 years old. After that, the training wheels were taken away, and one learned to pull a few strands and twirl the fork vertically. I still use a tablespoon sometimes, and I always provide one for guests, who find it makes the task much easier.

I have to admit I hate it when people cut their spaghetti, and I know it's because that's how I was raised. All the "regulars" at Shut Up And Eat* have developed fine twirling techniques over the years.

* a restaurant so underground that only people who dine at my house know it exists. [this post was last edited: 12/2/2012-18:56]

 

[launderess]

* a restaurant so underground that only people who dine at m

Riot!

 

[jeffg]

"Using a spoon to help wind long pasta around a fork is considered "working class" table manners. I was allowed to use a spoon until I was about 10 years old. After that, the training wheels were taken away, and one learned to pull a few strands and twirl the fork vertically."

This is way out in left field imo. Uncut long pasta + no spoon = certain mess if not stains, no matter how careful you are. Every 4 or 5-star Italian restaurant I've ever been to has provided tablespoons with long pastas.

 

[rp2813]

I think the spoon thing runs along the same lines as which way the toilet paper goes. 

 

I don't even know how to work my pasta with a spoon, but would hardly scoff at anyone who did use a spoon.  It's sort of an interesting little ritual.  Whatever floats your boat. 

 

Personally, spaghetti is my last choice for pasta.  I prefer penne/mostaccioli/rigatoni.

 

[mattl]

I don't use a spoon, but I do break my spaghetti of whatever kind I'm using in half when I drop it in the pot.  Wraps around the fork quite easily when I eat it, no muss no fuss.

 

[frigilux]

Jeff--- I've heard from several Italians that using a spoon to help twirl spaghetti shows coarse manners. I heard it first from my mom, but she grew up in Italy in the 1920's-40's and moved to the US with my dad in 1947, so things could have changed since then. I've heard it's akin to holding a knife in your left hand and using it to push food onto your fork. But if they're putting out tablespoons in high-class Italian restaurants, then who am I to argue the point? As I said earlier, I always put out tablespoons for guests, and sometimes use one myself.

This may be a "rule" that has been eclipsed over time.

 

[danemodsandy]

Huh?

"I've heard it's akin to holding a knife in your left hand and using it to push food onto your fork."

Using the knife as a "pusher" was approved by no less than Emily Post herself.

 

[launderess]

I've heard it's akin to holding a knife in your left

Watch any PBS/BBC period programme (Upstairs/Downstairs (both new and old series), Downton Abbey, Jeeves & Wooster, etc... and you'll see everyone from royalty to upper middle class (if not even middle class) eating using their knives in left hand to *push* food onto a fork held in right hand.

 

[petek]

We never spoon twirled spaghetti at our house.Moms 2nd gen Italian Wasn't until one time I was at a friends place for dinner (non italians) and they twirled it with a spoon. I thought it was sort of odd.
But then mom was adverse to eating with her fingers and would use a knife and fork to eat pizza. We'd razz her about that.