Grab some socks and listen up because we're finally doing it. Slick Spaghetti and Dick Trickle are here with Marco Polo and Goldilocks to discuss the memories, history and assumptions about spaghetti. Through injuries and mispronunciations we debate length, thickness and more before diving into the deep end.
Episode 136: Non-Tomato Pasta Sauces Pt. 1
Spaghetti and Meatballs by Molly Wizenberg
A nifty little video by Epicurious.com
Matthew's Now but Wow! - Pailin’s Thai restaurant dish tier list
Molly 0:00
Hi. I'm Matthew and I'm Molly. And
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:05
this is spilled milk the show where we cook something delicious. Eat it all, and you can't have any
Molly 0:10
today we are finally doing it. Yeah, everybody's waiting for us. That's
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:15
right. Will they? or won't they talk about spaghetti?
Molly 0:18
That's right, today's our spaghetti episode.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:20
And like we we have this running, running bid where like, we have never done a spaghetti episode and we pretend that people are demanding that we do and no, it's actually demanded and
Molly 0:29
nobody's ever demanded it. Nobody's ever noticed it, not even us until a few months ago, right?
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:34
But I'm excited to talk about spaghetti. Me too. And
Molly 0:36
I so it's interesting, because when you start doing so I did the research for this episode. And when you start doing research into spaghetti right away, you get into like the like history of pasta territory. Sure. And I'm still I gotta say I'm still a little unclear on like, when spaghetti actually started but we're gonna get into all of it. Okay, great. Yeah, there's a lot there's a lot of
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:00
learning. Well, it all started when Strega Nona said the magic words who are pasta pot. That's right.
Molly 1:05
But she also knew the words to turn it on. Which by or
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:09
not, yeah, and someday your big company you're getting ready to tell this story someday, but not yet.
Molly 1:17
So yeah, memory lane. You know what, there's like a lot of spaghetti on my memory lane. But it was really hard for me to think of something specific and honestly, I think that the first specific memory I have a spaghetti is of cooking kutcho A Pepe for myself in my first apartment. Oh, yeah. When I was in grad school, I mean, I ate spaghetti countless times before that, but this is the first time I really remember like, buying spaghetti maybe starting to learn a little bit about like, you know the difference between spaghetti that's been made in dyes that you know leave some texture on the outside as opposed to like really slick spaghetti slick slick, daddy that's like you know, supposedly lower quality or doesn't hold the sauce as well.
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:06
If I were a like a Formula One race or NASCAR like race car guy be slicks by the by nickname would be slick spaghetti. You would just
Molly 2:14
slip and slide around that that formula what would you want to be Formula One or NASCAR?
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:20
I think Formula One well Yeah, cuz you'd be faster because I'd be fast and slicker like we recently had, like, you know, a favorite kind of conversation to have at work is like, you know, famous people with funny names. I was reminded once again and got to share once again that there was an actual, like, very successful racecar driver who went by the name Dick trickle is first of all, I mentioned that there was a congress in a dick sweat. And then I was like, No, there was there was like someone who was even worse than
Molly 2:51
ash ordered something online yesterday and like, just for fun, decided to change our shipping, like our name on the shipping address later to puffins McGee,
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:02
that's very good. I logged into Vanguard to like do like a first of the year financial thing today, and I many years ago, I like Vanguard said what would you like to be called when you log in? So every time I log into this serious financial website, it says welcome Greasemonkey Amster-Burton
Molly 3:22
Perfect Well, I can't wait to get the package addressed to puffins
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:25
McGee Yeah, that is awesome. That this reminds me like when when my brothers were in a high school or middle school one of their friends as a prank like signed them up for a bunch of junk mail with funny like under funny name like Dick trickle like the the one that I heard the best one was noses Ben Amster
Molly 3:53
His name is Ben
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:57
It was like they like got to the end of like you know okay, I've come up with a bunch of like made up funny names. I don't know just nodes Ben and that was the best one
Molly 4:05
we won.
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:08
I remember one other my other brothers named Jake and there was one with Yun K M stairway pronounced it J U N qu E or just joke but UK is fun.
Molly 4:26
Okay, Matthew, what's your spaghetti memory lane?
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:29
Okay, so my I have like one really clear spaghetti memory lane that I know I've mentioned on the show before which was that when I was in grade school, I had a friend named Ben not knows Ben different Ben. And any every time I went to his house, there were two food and drink things that I really looked forward to that were always on offer which was where there was Tropical Punch kool aid in the fridge. We never had at home awesome. And his mom would always make spaghetti and meat sauce that was definitely made with spaghetti cooked supper. musingly out 24
Molly 5:01
Would you say it was to Atlanta? In retrospect, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:04
think maybe a little bit but I really liked it. Ah, okay. And probably a jar of Ragu and some ground beef and like I thought this was so good. I have not had that exact formulation since middle school probably I don't think but I certainly remember it. Oh,
Molly 5:20
wow. Bands household sounds a little bit like the household of my friend Jennifer Pascall whose mother Linda right it was real fun gal was a real fun guy. Linda made really good shepherd's pie. Oh, yeah. And their household always had cereals like cinnamon toast crunch never had at home. Thank goodness for childhood friends who could introduce us to the court? Nothing.
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:42
Yeah. Okay, one more this is this is going to be a recipe that I'm going to mention later, but at some point, we started making the Cook's Illustrated Salerno spaghetti recipe and that's become like our house spaghetti. It is spaghetti with garlic, a lot of olive oil, and then topped with an Parmesan. Oh, and then topped with a whole bunch of toasted bread crumbs. Oh, so good. And a fried egg. Okay, so good. Yeah. So like it all and then and then you'd like add more bread crumbs at the table in mass quantities. Oh, I
Molly 6:14
would love to try this. Okay. Well, so let's talk about what this stuff is because I think that, you know, all of us can like rattle off like, you know, papardelle a is thicker than spaghetti or penne A is the like tube one would cut on the bias or Well, let me
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:32
ask you this, like, do you think of spaghetti as being the default pasta? Like if someone sent you to the store in some sort of made up scenario and said like, get me a box of pasta and refused especially specify which one I would come back was big. I
Molly 6:47
think I'd come back with spaghetti too. But yeah, yeah, it's
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:51
it also I get a new friend because that's mean thing. I'm
Molly 6:54
friend is stupid. No. Anyway, yeah, I do think that spaghetti is the default pasta. It's also I think spaghetti is a standard like a catch all word. Yeah, we're pasta like I think a lot of people will refer to pasta dishes. The do not use spaghetti, calling it like, Oh, we're having spaghetti
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:16
in the in the same way that like macaroni used to be the word for pasta, at least in North America. That's right. Okay.
Molly 7:23
So spaghetti. For those who haven't really thought about exactly what it is. Here are the things that distinguish it from anything else it is. It's solid, unlike bucatini, for instance, which is hollow. So it's solid and it's cylindrical in cross section. So
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:40
so like like a pasta alla Kitara is not not necessarily a spaghetti what is pasta, I like Kitara it's when it's when you like roll a pasta sheet over over a guitar over like one of this, like a box with a bunch of wires on top. So it cuts it into into like spaghetti ish sized noodles. But they're but they're not round. Well. Yeah,
Molly 7:59
so that's gonna be like a fettuccine or a linguini. Well,
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:03
I mean, they're square in cross sectional. They're
Molly 8:06
square, right? So here's where things get a little bit confusing for me. Because the thing is, is when you start looking up spaghetti, like let's say you go to the Wikipedia page for spaghetti. Right away, it gets into the history of pasta. Yeah, it talks about spaghetti as though spaghetti is one of the earliest forms of like pasta that had like a, you know, a name a specific, okay, word associated with it. But the thing is, is that the spaghetti that we think of is extruded through die. So it's industrial, its industrial. And there are ways we'll talk about this in a minute. I mean, you can make spaghetti at home, but you either are going to make it by like rolling out pasta dough with a rolling pin and then cutting it with a knife, which is going to yield a solid noodle, but it's going to be like a square or rectangular noodle and I won't have that oh mean either. Or you can do something that almost seems to me like you know, surely in practice that it doesn't look like you know, hand pulled noodles like Sichuan you know, hand poles. But you can make spaghetti apparently that way. You can also
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:18
peachy right where you like take a little ball of dough and like roll it out into a snake.
Molly 9:23
That's right. That's what you would start out doing. If you were doing this kind of technique, you would roll a bowl of pasta dough into like a sausage and then you would kind of pull it all right. And you would repeat and repeat and repeat. Yeah, I'm
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:38
gonna just buy the ronzoni So what's confusing to me
Molly 9:41
is if you start looking into it, you are led to believe that spaghetti is kind of the original pasta, but I don't understand what how spaghetti could have been cylindrical prior to mass production.
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:54
Yeah, I don't think it really could and I mean, you know, unless someone was doing like, like, I think peachy He's probably older than then mass produce spaghetti and so but but it's thicker, well,
Molly 10:04
okay, so we're going to talk about okay, so okay, you know what, let's go straight into into the history because I think this is this will be important. So the first record of pasta comes from the Talmud, which is a Jewish text text. Yes. comes from the Talmud in the fifth century AD. So the four hundreds, and it refers to a dried pasta that was boiled by cooking, okay, and this checks out because here's the thing, you check this out and I time traveled, okay, and no, but here's the thing. So there's this common myth that pasta was brought to Italy by a Venetian explorer named Marco Polo, who traveled all over the place best
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:47
known for like his pool. In the pool. Yeah. Well, so
Molly 10:52
Marco Polo, apparently went to Asia went to China, and had noodles there, which they did exist there. Sure. But this was the 1200s. So like, not all that long ago as like the history of Yeah, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:07
mean, we don't remember it, but your dad would
Molly 11:09
have. That's right, my dad. And anyway, here's the thing. Marco Polo did not. He did not he did not introduce Rasta to Italy, he did not do that. I don't know where that comes from. Well, I mean,
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:24
it makes it for Markopolos a fun name to say, it's so fun. They turned it into a whole game where you yell at a bunch of times. It also
Molly 11:31
makes it makes a good story. Yeah, it makes it so that like the Italians discovered pasta in the Far East and brought it to Italy. Like
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:40
we already we debunked Dom Perignon on a previous episode. So I felt like that's also a fun name to say. So if you're like that, the you need you need like an origin story. That's like too good to be true. And you need you need a person with a fun name.
Molly 11:53
That's right. So the truth is, so Marco Polo, who was around in the 1200s, you know, he did go to China pasta existed in China then. But the thing is, is there was already pasta in Italy before he was even born. So the thing is, is pasta was almost certainly introduced to the place that we now call Italy, in the eighth and ninth centuries by traders from North Africa. Okay, traders and merchants from North Africa, and, you know, the Middle East, so Arab traders, basically, here's what's interesting to me. So presumably, the Talmud probably would have been, you know, written in that part of the world, right. So, apparently, as early as the fifth century, merchants and traders from North Africa, were making and carrying with them a type of dried noodle, when they you know, traveled across the vast distances, because you can imagine it was lightweight, super portable, and they would just boil it and they would eat it plain. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:55
mean, it's like how I sometimes carry like a package of sheen. Gourmet, spicy ramen. Yeah,
Molly 13:01
yeah, exactly. That portable, that easy. So this pasta that these traders from North Africa would carry was called a Tria. I don't know for sure what it looked like, but presumably, it was some sort of hand rolled noodle type thing, because it was certainly not extruded as far as I understand.
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:20
Yeah, I mean, like, we I don't we've done doodle episodes before. Like, I imagine like the reason noodles exist is partly because like it dry, they dry quickly. But also, but but people like eating fresh noodles. Also, I, in my mind, like the original original pasta was sort of like, like a dumpling that you like Smash between your fingers, like, like an Yoky, sort of, and then sort of, like pulled it pulled it or rolled it out long. It was like, Oh, this is a great texture. Let's do more of it. Well, and
Molly 13:47
for sure. That is one of the oldest forms of quote unquote pasta is a dumpling type thing. So anyway, the idea of these noodles that are made from durum wheat semolina and water, date, easily back to the four hundreds, but they came from North Africa. I don't know the origins of noodles in China.
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:06
But I don't think we need to answer that on this.
Molly 14:09
I do think we do either. And the truth is, is somehow I doubt that they're made from Durham, North semolina, so it's a whole different thing. No,
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:17
like that's, that's a really hard wheat, that that's going to be grown in Northern Europe and yeah, northern Eastern Europe. So Italy is Southern Europe.
Molly 14:27
So pasta, you know, came into Italy, by way of Sicily. And what what Italy's contributions have been, you know, broadly to pasta is that they started adding sauce to it or eating it, you know, in a form other than just boiled and eaten plain. Okay, so they added sauce, and they also are the ones who invented like the pasta machine and the means for mass production.
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:55
I don't I don't imagine noodles were just boiled and eaten plain in China, like pry heir to pasta doubt
Molly 15:01
it I doubt it. But I think that from what I understand, you know, the the North Africans who were carrying pasta around on their voyages, they were eating it plain. Okay, so let's talk about what the word means please because I do have someone on staff
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:21
that's true on maybe on retainer. Yes Yeah, we by the way, we need to talk about like the the expense of Mr etymologies retainer because it's getting out of control. I
Molly 15:30
know it really
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:38
okay, so Mr. endermologie, is here to let you know that a spaghetti is the plural form of the Italian words but ghetto, which is a diminutive of Spargo, meaning thin string or twine or restaurant in Beverly Hills. Good one. Molly probably wrote this Mr. etymologies just reading it. And so I noticed this also, because I also looked at the Wikipedia page for spaghetti and there's a section a whole section of the page entitled spaghetti.
Molly 16:05
Really got such a case of the giggles researchy, too. So I was like, this is the dumbest thing I've spaghetti
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:10
Spkr ghe TTI. So the the claim is that the word was originally spark Edie until like the late 19th century, and then like, morphed into spaghetti. But it seems to us like someone's just like punking us, like, like screwing around on Wikipedia. Like
Molly 16:29
I spent a longtime googling spar Getty and Google was like, surely you want spaghetti?
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:35
Yeah. Did you? Did you like follow any of the references? I
Molly 16:38
did. I you know, I clicked at the top of Google and said, No, no, I want spaghetti. And I found a few things. But it almost seemed like people just miss typing.
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:51
Yeah, so it says also from Wikipedia, quote, The Great Eastern Railway magazine of 1914 recommends spaghetti as an alternative to macaroni and it's recipe for macaroni cheese. I said Barker oni cheese. I don't think this makes sense because it doesn't sound like Italian phonology.
Molly 17:07
This sounds like when American dialects that say washing machine instead of washing machine. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:14
so I mean, it's it's possible that like someone like we're not the first people to ever say spaghetti but it just doesn't sound like Italian dumb.
Molly 17:21
You know what I would like somebody who do we is there a real Mr. Endermologie in the room? Like is who isn't just you?
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:29
I don't know, like friend of the show. Ken albala. Oh, he says we should call him well while recording and I'm like too shy to actually actually do that. Sorry. He'll probably hear this and then email us and tell us like whether spar good. Here's a real big.
Molly 17:43
So you've probably seen when you go to the store to buy spaghetti. You've probably seen spaghetti. No, you've probably almost bought spaghettini Yeah, no, you're right. No, but have you actually have you actually done it? Like, have you ever gone to the store to get spaghetti and come home with spaghettini instead?
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:00
I don't think so. Because I think that's always pretty much always labeled thin spaghetti these days? Probably because there were so many incidents, there's probably
Molly 18:09
so apparently there's you know, not only is there spaghettini, which is the thinner form of spaghetti, but there's Spock and Tony. Like rigatoni. I mean, I felt like it was
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:19
wicked Tony. We could podia is like Wikipedia only bigger. Spec spider Tony Peenya it's like a shortage of wiki it's
Molly 18:33
here are you ready?
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:35
today? Wow. Like medical terminology.
Molly 18:37
Get more iron ore or excuse me? No. More
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:42
Wikipedia articles. Oh, man. I found the greatest random Wikipedia article the other day. What was it? It was it was like a list of fictional somethings. It's gonna come to me. It shows your weight. No Spagna Tony is real. It is like I'm like I'm if not I'm starting to rumor here that that that Spock? atony is real and also Bigfoot.
Molly 19:01
Okay, okay, so there's Spock or Tony or foot Tony So would you say then that spaghetti is the like the Goldilocks of of spaghetti like she's the she needs it to be like right in the middle like not too big. Not too small. I'm
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:16
not sure if the analogy works is like like Goldilocks but I guess Goldilocks herself or self was medium size because she didn't know what she meant a baby bears. No. Baba bears. Which Which bed? Did Goldilocks we've had this conversation before. I think I've getting a real sense of deja vu because I know the next thing I said was like then the bears came home and ate her.
Molly 19:37
Probably no, but in this case, they came home and they had spaghetti. Yes, a cap aleni is Goldilocks sauce. It's a form of spaghetti in this cylindrical it's solid. It is very thin spaghetti thinner than spaghetti like almost like the hair of an angel. That's right. Spaghetti apparently used to be like very long like the noodles used to be Got
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:00
that Sarah McLachlan song stuck in my head. I
Molly 20:02
don't I don't even want to get one. I don't want to know which one. Yep. Okay, spaghetti apparently used to be like very long. And it it's now a
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:12
very I don't know Miles is there is there a way of carrying
Molly 20:17
it into the house like you had to be? Like turn the corners weren't careful with her
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:22
shotgun flats came from it so people could get their spaghetti into into the house.
Molly 20:27
I don't know what you're talking about. Okay. Oh, yes. No, a railroad railroad flats. Today, it's most commonly available in 10 to 12 inch length. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:35
but but measure to be careful.
Molly 20:37
That's Ah, okay. Is there anything else we need to say about the history? Oh, I do have something else to say about the history so so the popularity of spaghetti really, like took off in Italy after like the the 19th century is when they when they started calling it spaghetti. Apparently it was like 1888 or something.
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:59
And before that it was far getting
Molly 21:02
far giddy. But anyway, spaghetti to turns
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:05
out this is true. I don't think I think we'll have to like, end the show. We
Molly 21:09
will too, because our bullshit detectors are totally off. So factories were set up in the 19th century to make would
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:18
you describe these as Old Spaghetti Factory?
Molly 21:24
Yeah, anyway, so in the US spaghetti started being offered in restaurants around the end of the 1800s. Okay. And it was typically like a dish called spaghetti, Italian.
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:37
So this was this during a time that like, you know, if you had a had a restaurant, like the menu had to be kind of French. Like you had to put some French on the menu to seem fancy whether or not it was a French restaurant.
Molly 21:47
You're asking me this, like,
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:49
I know. I feel like that would be the explanation for why I was called Italian
Molly 21:54
Have we ever done like a show on like the history of menus? No,
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:59
I went to went to it, like history of New York menus exhibit at the New York Public Library. So I'm hearing fighting perfect, we should do that.
Molly 22:06
Well, so spaghetti Italian was probably like wildly overcooked noodles with a mild tomato sauce that was likely flavored with whatever spices and vegetables were commonly in kitchens at that time, which probably would have been like cloves. bayleaf and garlic
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:22
don't like the idea of cloves dinero
Molly 22:26
I know. It was not until decades later that spaghetti was typically prepared with oregano or basil.
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:31
Oh, the other day a cots de adult child of the show December asked me whether whether the word clove, like the spice and clove and like cloven hoof come from the same the same route and I as Mr. Etymology Googled this and the answer is no. Okay,
Molly 22:48
that's, that's illuminating. So, you know, obviously we most often encounter spaghetti as a dried pasta but it can be made and sold fresh. I don't know why anybody would do this. It
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:01
seems like a pasta that naturally wants to be a dried pasta.
Molly 23:06
If you asked it. Yes. I mean, like you're attributing
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:11
No, no, that's not true. Like because I can think of thinner fresh noodles that are good, but it seems it seems like like Italian style pasta, like once it gets that thin, like it's gonna get clumpy if it's fresh.
Molly 23:22
I agree. I mean, which is kind of what's remarkable about Tyrion, the the typically Piedmontese pasta, which is unusual hair. And that is no I'm wrong. Fresh. But I mean, I think it's extruded. I don't know. Is Tyrion extruded? I don't know. It's not our tire enough. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:41
I would have guessed it's not but we'll do yeah, we'll do an episode on that. It's good stuff, okay.
Molly 23:53
dried spaghetti is almost always made in factories mass production using extruders. Basically what that means if you've never like thought about it, or watched a YouTube video of it is that basically pasta dough is forced through tiny openings in either like, like a perforated plate or what's called a die. In the case of spaghetti, these would be small circular openings, I would assume so yes. The extruded pasta is then cut to a specific length commonly 10 to 12 inches these days. And here's what I hadn't thought about, apparently, you know, they have to be really careful to manage the extruded and cut spaghetti noodles as they dry so that they don't stick together. Sure. And so they're, well, they're like full on spaghetti. dehydrators basically, I mean, I saw a picture of one on on Wikipedia, but I didn't read a lot about it other than to learn that not only does it have to be carefully managed so that the strands don't stick together, but they also want it to not lose so much moisture that it'd be comes very brittle and
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:01
when it needs to hit a like like, you know rail like straight as a rail that's not an expression straight as an arrow. It had never occurred because you know when like a Kirby's spaghetti. No, my wife was silly, but that's a totally different but it
Molly 25:13
never occurred to me that you know that a lot of the mass production of pasta would also be having the proper mechanisms for drying it. When
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:21
you were a kid. Did you have the playdough extruder thing where you like push a little level lever? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like there was the hair but then also like there was like a star shape one and other stuff. Oh,
Molly 25:33
you're right. And there's I think there was a heart shape. Yeah, done.
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:37
Great toy.
Molly 25:38
I would love to play with that. Now.
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:40
I bet I bet they still make it.
Molly 25:41
You know, Matthew, we should we should start like a whisk whisk list,
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:45
which is a whisk whisk list. With a list of things we whisked up
Molly 25:50
things that we wished for, like remember how I wanted to dishwasher but nobody came forth and gave me a dishwasher.
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:55
You did end up getting an induction burner.
Molly 25:57
I did. Oh my god. And I've used that induction burner quite a fair amount.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:01
So I think I think you could probably get yourself a playdough extraordinaire, if that's where you're going. No, no, wait, I'll write it down. Because Because Because your birthday is coming up in like nine months. You're right. It is okay. Okay, so I'm not writing it down.
Molly 26:17
I don't think I have anything else to say like research wise.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:20
So we should talk about like, how we like to cook and eat spaghetti. Right?
Molly 26:26
Number one, actually. Yeah, number one, I have something I want to say that I didn't even put on the agenda. You know how when you buy a large stock pot, it often comes with a pasta basket inside.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:37
Yes. Which I threw away. Yeah. Does anybody keeping use those things? I bet some people must or they wouldn't keep putting them in there. But it doesn't work very well.
Molly 26:47
Yeah, I don't think I've ever used the one that came. I have like a 12 quart stockpot that came with it. And I think I might have even gotten rid of it. Yeah, no, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:56
have an eight quart stockpot that came with one of those and I got rid of it many years ago and I've been boiling pasta in the pot just fine ever since.
Molly 27:03
What about specific pasta like utensils like oh, okay, that's like there's a thing that's like a very deep spoon that has what that is called a spaghetti what is it called? That is called a spaghetti spaghetti picker upper and it's like a spoon but the edges have like fingers
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:24
Yeah, it's got like it's like a spoon with a bunch of fingers coming out of the edge. Now do you use that for spaghetti all the time? Yeah, yeah, I never had one so like particular the Salerno spaghetti recipe that I mentioned like really needs to be very well tossed with the with the parmigiano and olive oil and stuff.
Molly 27:41
What do you use this to toss it? Yeah. Oh, because whenever I have so cat toy Pepe needs to be tossed really well. I use two forks. That were horrible sound
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:53
you like but just this OXO Good Grips. We're not sponsored by them this week. But like this this OXO Good Grips, spaghetti picker upper works really well for that.
Molly 28:02
What about special spaghetti tongs, which look like tongs but they've got these fingers on like one side of it. I never used that. I've never used those either. It might be it might be fine. I don't have any specific pasta cooking utensils. I use regular tongs. Or if I'm using an extruded like pasta shape. I will use a spider. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:25
for no particular reason. I think this would work. Also when I make pod tie I use regular tongs to kind of keep it moving as the sausage reducing. I don't know. Okay.
Molly 28:33
Okay. Matthew, what do you deal with spaghetti?
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:37
Okay, so the major spaghetti things we do around here are Salerno spaghetti and spaghetti carbonara. I also am a big fan of spaghetti all'amatriciana and spaghetti Alec riccia and I feel like there was some episode where we talked about like those three Roman sauces used
Molly 28:53
to understand the differences between them like other creatures almost like on my tree Ciana minus tomato okay
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:01
and carbon Ara is with eggs. Okay? Okay, so other otherwise they're very closely related.
Molly 29:06
Okay. Did somebody a long time ago like some prominent food writer didn't they right like Wasn't there a piece that went way deep on Amatriciana or something like that probably I would I would like to read that like there was a time when I knew a lot about Amma tree Ciana and thought of it as like something that you would go on a quest for.
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:27
Okay, I'm gonna guess it was maybe well, I'm sure I'm sure Waverly route in the fruit of Italy talks about it some wonder Bill Buford, Bill Buford might have gone deep on it or something. Like I think Linares had a casper may have like two recipes for it in the Italian country table like different approaches is one of my favorite dishes. It's spectacular. Yeah, so like like pinch hitter or guanciale, tomato, garlic, spaghetti, sometimes onions
Molly 29:56
and then a great chat. Does it have a lot of black pepper or something? or
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:00
I think I think so. But it's really simple. It's like it's like, basically spaghetti with a sauce of like olive oil and a bunch of cured pork.
Molly 30:09
And do you always use spaghetti for these dishes like do you know always keep spaghetti around as opposed to clean? fettuccine? Yeah, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:18
don't use dried linguini or fettuccine that much and I don't either. Yeah, like spaghetti is a really good noodle and it works really well. And those dishes I do sometimes make use bucatini. I am a bucatini fan. I know some people hate it because it's so thick. But like I like it thick.
Molly 30:34
Yeah, no, I like it too. I like to chew food. Good. Me too. Yeah. I always have spaghetti in the house. Yeah, always. It is I would say the only pasta that I always have in the house.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:44
Yeah, and the spaghetti I have around is 10 to 12 inches long.
Molly 30:47
Great. I'm glad you measured it. Yeah. And then I always have some sort of extruded shape, you know the shorter pasta, but spaghetti is so I do feel like now that I'm thinking about it. It is foundational to so many of the named pasta dishes that we think of carbon are Ghanian
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:03
meatballs we haven't we have not said the phrase spaghetti and meatballs yet on this video so no. Like you introduce me to what I think of as the ultimate spaghetti and meatballs recipe which
Molly 31:14
is the cafe Lago meatball Yeah, yeah. Oh my god, that meatballs, so I wrote about it in Bon Appetit years and years ago. We will link to it. It's a recipe I learned from a man named Jordi velata us who was at that time the chef and co owner of Cafe Lago Cafe Lago is today owned by Carla Leonardo it, it is as delicious as ever, you can still get the meatballs there. But we'll link to it in the show notes. You know, I think I used to make spaghetti and meatballs a lot more. The truth is, I don't love eating them together. And you're saying I love eating figure out how to eat them together. Like you cut up the meatballs, but then it's like, why are they meat balls? Why
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:57
are they meatballs? Indeed? I think we're good. I think I really do like Mr. Mr. Meatball philosophy. Now in our retainer cost is doubled. I love
Molly 32:07
a meatball. But I'm realizing as I think about this, that in the last five to 10 years what I think I've been doing a lot of is taking whatever sausage or ground meat we have around and kind of starting with that I do that a lot. And then like tomato I often add some cream. Definitely onion is in there a little bit of oregano. Yeah, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:32
do. I do exactly. Like I will make that sometimes like for lunch for myself on a work day. Like if I have like a leftover Italian sausage link. That's what I'm going to do. But like there's something so celebratory and special about a big meatball. That's
Molly 32:46
true. How do you toss your spaghetti and meatballs because you can't really toss pasta? Well when they're big
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:55
Scoop Scoop some sauce out of the out of the saucy meatballs and toss that with the pasta and then then spoon a couple of saucy meatballs on top. How do
Molly 33:02
you feel about so I noticed on Wikipedia there were a lot of pictures of spaghetti and of course one of them was like you know spaghetti with like tomato sauce. It was just a bowl of plain spaghetti with a bloop of tomato sauce on top. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:17
cannot I cannot apply you have to toss this the sauce with the POS I can't stand that. I don't understand why people do that. Yeah, because yeah, that's a terrible idea to get in need to get into what happens if you don't it's too terrible to talk.
Molly 33:30
It is I don't I don't I gotta think of something else. Okay, let's think about other spaghetti.
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:35
Yeah, I would rather like play Marco Polo in a swimming pool full of hot tomato sauce.
Molly 33:41
Hey, I would like to do want to do that. You know what Matthew, I want to let you know that the world record for the largest bowl of spaghetti was set when a Buca di Beppo in Garden Grove California filled a swimming pool with more than 330 Excuse me 13,000 pounds of it. This surprises me Not at all. How would you feel about swimming in a swimming pool of spaghetti? I feel
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:05
like it would be dangerous I feel like I would like jump in there like Oh look at me I'm throwing it spaghetti and then I would drown and like it would be one of those things where like I died and then people laugh at me which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid I fell
Molly 34:16
down some stairs at our Airbnb the other day like I was I don't know what the deal was. I was wearing socks. That was your first mistake and the steps were carpeted and I got to the second like the second to last step wiped down and then to PySpark Matthew are the worst part is I did it again the same day and hit my head
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:39
Wow. Are you okay?
Molly 34:42
I am okay but you better believe I did not go up and down the steps in that Airbnb with socks on ever again.
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:49
Do you remember like I'm just gonna recycle this funny thing I saw that I know I already mentioned on the show but like I saw some magazine near the checkout stand at the store that had the teaser headline right Reduce your sick risk by 82% Just grab just grab some socks. Do you remember there were so many things about that I like first of all that it's completely ridiculous that they did that it's literally like 82% Like they calculated and then the phrase sick risk and then if that if you just have to grab some socks you don't even need
Molly 35:20
to put them on. No. Okay, but anyway back to like, let's talk about other spaghetti dishes for instance in the states often we talk about like spag bol or spaghetti bowl and
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:34
you don't say spag bol in the states that's a that's a you know, that's
Molly 35:38
a UK thing. In Italy, it would never be spaghetti. Would it be like, tell you to LA? Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:47
that's the word. Yeah,
Molly 35:49
no, wait a minute. Is that right? Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:51
I mean, so that's not the only thing you can Bolognese but it's less likely to be spaghetti.
Molly 35:55
Yeah. Okay. What else do people do with spaghetti? Matthew?
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:58
Let's see. So Putin Eska Of course, all yo OLIO my dad's favorite spaghetti alla Vongole with with clams usually clams in the shell.
Molly 36:09
Catch away, Pepe. Of course. You know, I had the funniest experience when I was typing that up, because I only think of that dish as cat toy Pepe. I never think about what the intended noodle is. I just Yes, spaghetti. It's good point. But it is spaghetti cat toy Pepe is what's conventional. Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:27
And like, because spaghetti is such a good noodle. And he's kind of a default noodle. It has traveled the world and like made its way into lots of cuisines that are not Italian or North America.
Molly 36:39
That's right. In fact, I think that there was a lot that I once knew about the relationship between the US and the Philippines sure that I had forgotten that researching spaghetti taught me for instance. So during the period of time, I think it was about 70 years, when the Philippines was a US colony. It was very interesting researching that because it was very difficult to find any place that would actually say the word colony. Oh, sure. That is what it was. Yeah. So I think it was from the late 1800s until 1946. So the Philippines was a US colony. And during that time, spaghetti, you know, made its way into Filipino cuisine through American influence. And it was right away sort of tweaked to Filipino tastes. It's sweeter. Yeah, they traditionally serve spaghetti. Filipino spaghetti involves a tomato sauce that sweetened with either banana ketchup or sugar. And it usually includes ground meat sliced hotdogs and cheese. It sounds phenomenal. Yeah, it
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:51
sounds great.
Molly 37:51
I am here for it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:52
It reminds me of of like the Korean like army stew that's made with with like noodles and spam and American cheese. Yes. Yeah. Yes.
Molly 38:00
Spaghetti is eaten widely in the Philippines.
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:05
Okay, in Thailand, they make like very popular spaghetti pod Chiemgau. So like a stir fried noodle dish but weighed with spaghetti.
Molly 38:12
I also learned that in Johor, Malaysia that spaghetti is a main part of their regional lochsa lochsa. Sure.
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:21
And guess what, you're going to be shocked. I'm going to talk about spaghetti in Japan. Of course. Spaghetti is very popular in Japan and like pasta dishes in general pastas is hugely popular. And that means both like you know, Italian style pasta dishes, but also a lot of fusion pasta dishes. And so the most popular spaghetti dish by far in Japan like one of the most popular dishes period is Napolitana as in Neapolitan made with a sauce of ketchup, onion, mushrooms, green pepper and bacon and serve with with a bottle of Tabasco sauce. Because this contains ketchup I fear it and I've never tried it but it is a very much beloved dish. And I would love to try it something you would get in like, like a western style cafe or like a family restaurant in Japan. The second most popular Japanese spaghetti dish I think is mentaiko spaghetti which I have had that's made with butter us mentaiko which is spicy preserved cod row and like naughty seaweed treads on top really good.
Molly 39:23
What is the word for for like Western dishes
Matthew Amster-Burton 39:28
Yoshioka so we shouldn't use like Western food but it but it refers to Western dishes that had been kind of reinvented through a Japanese lens. Okay, and is is a fascinating and deep and delicious part of Japanese cuisine. And I'm just
Molly 39:43
fascinated that there's a whole word for it like that there that there's enough of a like cuisine there that very
Matthew Amster-Burton 39:49
much is okay. So then I was like okay, so So Japanese Western fusion pasta dishes are called wha pasta or Wafu pasta Wafu is like Japanese style. Hmm So there are multiple restaurant chains that specialize in this sort of thing. And I felt like when I was looking at the menu of one of them it absolutely encapsulated for me like what is so otherworldly incredible about eating in Japan because I've never been to this place but I'm going to so there's a a big chain called y'all man y'all goin on y'all man y'all just means like House of Western noodles. So I looked at what is their what are their some of their seasonal specials right now? Okay, ready for this? I'm ready. Spaghetti with red pepper flakes scallions, Hiroshima, oysters and scallops. Spaghetti with show you butter Barraco pork winter vegetables and a poached egg. Holy shit spaghetti cream soup with red Snow Crab shrimp Yubo which is tofu skin and graded turnip like dough. These all sound fantastic. Yeah, all of these dishes are under $10. This is a like a casual chain restaurant.
Molly 40:51
Wow. You're just giggling with glee? Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 40:55
And we'll link to the the Kikkoman soy sauce website has a huge array of of wha pasta recipes on their on their website and we will link to that
Molly 41:05
great. Okay. Wow, that was our spaghetti episode.
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:08
Yeah, we did it.
Molly 41:09
We did it. We finally did it. What's what's our next for you Matthew?
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:13
It was great.
Molly 41:14
It was really it was good. Yeah, I'm
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:16
really like satisfied. Like deep down. Yeah, me too. I feel like I received like 10 to 12 inches of spaghetti. All right. Do we have any segments such as a spilled mail?
Molly 41:27
We do. I would be happy to read our spilled mail please do.
This one comes from listener Margaret, who is not me. Okay. My legal name is Margaret. Oh, thanks. But this is listener Margaret. Hi, Molly and Matthew. I'm listening to your Nutella episode and was very distressed during your breakdown of the word Nutella because I couldn't figure out if I had been pronouncing it Nutella or Nutella. It
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:56
sounds like during our break down. Margaret was having her own doctor imagined
Molly 42:00
my absolute mortification when I realized that I hadn't been pronouncing it either way, and instead had been skipping over the differentiating part entirely by simply saying Nutella. My question is, are there any words you realized perhaps embarrassingly late in life that you'd been mispronouncing? For example, I thought hors d'oeuvres was pronounced horrors divorce. till recently. I'm not particularly proud to admit any of this to you. I'm just hoping I'm not alone. Love the show. Margaret.
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:35
Okay, so first of all, I don't think anybody has ever like understood how hors d'oeuvre is pronounced if they're not French, like the first 12 times they
Molly 42:43
see it. I horrors divorce. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:46
I mean, certainly, I think I think there's a common experience. I had both heard the word and read the Word and thought they were two totally different things. Yeah.
Molly 42:52
I've got a good one. Okay. There is a passage in my first book, in which I reference a Rorschach test. Okay. And this I think it's in the first chapter because the first chapter when I was promoting a homemade life, the first chapter was what I would read on book tour. Okay, well, I had pretty much completed my book tour. Oh, boy, here we go. By the time I had my event at Brookline, booksmith or something like that in Brookline, Massachusetts, and my sister, my sister in law, Susan came up to me afterward. And we knew that I had been saying roar shock wrong, guys. Guys, Matthew and listeners, I had said this wrong in front of hundreds of people. What were you saying? I was saying roar such. I mean, I'd written an entire book that use this word and had never known how to properly pronounce it. And I still every time I see it, I want to say Rorschach. Yeah, no, that makes sense, Rorschach. Yeah. Oh my god. mortifying.
Matthew Amster-Burton 44:01
Okay, so I have I have an example that's like sort of a cop out but I think I thought it was really funny and like now I am kind of unsure every time I say the word. So I am a huge fan of the of the English rock band The clientele I've seen them play live couple times great live band can't recommend them more highly. They're just kind of like subdued indie rock of the kind you imagine I would listen to. And we recently watched their live performance on k xp, a great Seattle indie radio station that does all kinds of has artists in like every week doing incredible in studio performances. And they do an interview portion. And so and so the host Cheryl Waters was asking Alistair Maclean of the band, like you know about about the history of the band and what they've been working on recently. And we were all shocked when he said the name of the band and the way he says it is the clientele.
Molly 44:53
Oh, oh, okay. Is that a British ism? I assume
Matthew Amster-Burton 44:57
it must be i I have not attempted to like try and look this up, but I just assumed so and so now like when I say the name of the band, it'd be a French pronunciation, right? Yeah. So now when I say the name of the bad I tried wherever to save the clientele. If I ever had to say that word outside the context of the band, and I can't imagine why I would. I'm not sure what's going to come out of my mouth.
Molly 45:18
Oh, my gosh, this is such a. It's funny because it is, I think, a particularly mortifying experience Yeah, to discover you've been pronouncing something wrong for a very long time. Yeah, but, but a human experience. A very human experience. We've all we've all done it. Everyone is doing it. And we did too. And we did too. Yep. Um, Matthew, do you have an album? Wow,
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:42
were you were you referencing the cranberries album? Yes. Okay. I do have an album wow
I just watched a terrific video on YouTube by friend of the show pi Lin, who have Hot Thai Kitchen who has been on the show twice three times. We got to even keep track. She did a Thai restaurant dish tear list video where the the gist of the video is if you're going into a new tie a merit like North American or outside of Thailand Thai restaurant, what should you order that is most likely to be good. And what should you avoid because it's most likely to be bad, just not knowing anything about the restaurant. And then you know, arrange those into a tear list from like D tear at the bottom to est here at the top pilot is so much fun. And like had such a great time doing this and like you know, had some real hot takes about what, you know, North American Thai restaurants get right and wrong. And I just loved the whole thing. So we will link to it in the show notes. Fantastic.
Molly 46:48
Our producer is Abby circuit tele. Molly has
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:52
a newsletter called I've got a feeling and you can get it and Molly weisenberg.substack.com. I encourage you to do so.
Molly 46:59
Well. Thanks. You know, it is about to celebrate its second anniversary. Oh, congratulations. I started in February of 2022. So I think that there are like 80 Something posts up there. If you subscribe, you get all the old ones. Yeah, you get all the old ones. That's right. Yep. Matthew, you make music you have two bands that you're a part of one is called Twilight dinars. The other is called early to the airport and I happen to know that you've been working on some new stuff.
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:25
I've been working on some new stuff. I'm hoping it'll be out this spring. We'll see how it goes. Cool. You can rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. And you can now you can hang out with with the other hors d'oeuvres who listened to spilled milk at everything spilled milk.reddit.com
Molly 47:40
That's right. Thank you for listening to spilled milk. The show that's
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:48
tele telling you
Molly 47:54
Molly Weissenberg, and I'm
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:57
Matthew Amster-Burton.
That's pretty much the coolest thing your restaurant can have or food shop can have is to be a palindrome. Yeah,
Molly 48:14
I agree. Better.
Matthew Amster-Burton 48:19
Stew nods doughnuts.