Topic 140: On the Art of Eating Spaghetti

Megan:

Two things I've learned from my Father

I know I’ve learned a lot from my father, but I can only remember him deliberately teaching me two things: how to type using all of my fingers and how to eat spaghetti. With the typing, I remember my parents had just bought one of the first Apple’s – when everyone was still calling them Macintoshes. He wouldn’t let me play with it unless my fingers were placed properly on the keyboard. I resented it at the time, because it seemed slower, but my father assured me that eventually it would be faster. He was right.  I can type faster than almost anyone I know, and I don’t need to look at the screen while I do it.  It used to freak out my colleagues in the prison – sometimes it was hard to get work done when everyone was talking, so I would turn my face to the speaker so they would think I was paying attention, but I would continue typing. This backfired though, because I’d get distracted and start transcribing the conversation. Same thing happens when I write in my journal while watching TV.

Anyway, he also taught me how to eat spaghetti, by twirling a fork against a large spoon. Before I learned that, I had to cut up the spaghetti to eat it.  (I’ve since learned you can also use the side of the plate or bowl to do the same thing. )

I just remembered, he also taught me how to drive.  

Carol:

Tutta La Famiglia

 Today’s topic came up at dinner last night.   Megan said chopping up the spaghetti is only for kids. I had heard that twirling the spaghetti in a spoon was considered “peasant-style” Marc commented that he learned how to eat spaghetti properly from the Sicilian brothers who owned Carretos in Dewey. Frankly, the art of eating spaghetti has nothing to do with twirling or chopping. It has everything to do with “La Famiglia.”
 

My first experience with Italian cooking was not in a restaurant.  Flavia  introduced us to Italian cuisine. My cousin had been stationed in Italy and brought home an Italian wife. Flavia was loud and huggy. Loud wasn’t new to our family, but huggy was. Flavia would make a huge pot of Italian sauce and let it simmer on the stove for hours, the aroma wafting through the house. I would get to stir the sauce for a while and loved to watch the concoction thicken and explode  bubbles like red lava. By the time we actually ate, our appetites had reached the appropriate crescendo to really dig in and enjoy the spaghetti.  Flavia’s father came to visit once, a cute little bald man who couldn’t speak English, more huggy than loud.
 

I experienced a different kind of Italian family meal in the late 1970’s.  I was on a European study trip with students from the Catholic girls’ school where I worked in Los Angeles. We had been invited to meet the family of our only Italian student, who had been sent to Los Angeles because her father had received kidnapping threats.  Maria was an innocent little sweetheart beloved at the school, so we were excited as a bus picked us up and drove to their country home outside Rome. We arrived at a huge estate with its own winery and rolling expanse of lawn set with white-clothed tables for dining “al fresco.” The meal was unforgettable, course after course of Italian specialties served by elegant waiters, and the adults were given bottles of wine marked with the family label. Maria’s father was short, bald and round in the middle, a humble man who was grateful for our kindness to his only child. No English, lots of body language, loud  and huggy.
 

Most of the Italian restaurants in Prescott are family-run.  Marc’s favorite was a block from the courthouse, and a group of lawyer friends would meet there regularly in a corner booth by the window.  The owner’s parents had owned a succession of Italian restaurants in California before retiring to Prescott, so Jody was carrying on the family tradition. Her kids worked at the restaurant on weekends, and her parents would come by for lunch and help out. Marc became one of the family  and was given a custom bib to protect his tie and shirt from spaghetti sauce. He was a particular favorite of daughter Isabella who sat in a baby seat  while her mother greeted the customers. When Isabella got older, she would pout when Megan or I would join Marc at lunch. She didn’t like sharing him with others. He was her family. 

My cousin and Flavia eventually got a divorce. Marc’s favorite restaurant is under new ownership, several of the lawyers have died and Isabella has grown up. We trekked out to Dewey a few weeks ago, but Carretos was closed—permanently. Last night, we ended up at an Italian restaurant in Prescott Valley. Giovanni, a loud and huggy kind of guy, was chatting at the next table about his daughters, and our waitress shared a story about her grandson. Our little family was in the mood for celebration, so we ordered the house special.  It’s called “Tutta La Famiglia.”