My mother: "How long do you cook spaghetti after the water comes to a boil?"
Me: [baffled that my 70-year-old mother doesn't know how to make spaghetti]
Mom: "Well, I never make spaghetti!"
If it were someone else, I would worry they were getting demented, but it's actually the kind of question my mother asks me not infrequently. Like she's never sure how to calculate the tip in restaurants. And she didn't know what a pinata was.
I finally told her to look at the box, which said 10 minutes, but she insisted that wasn't usually that long. Although I don't understand how it can "usually" not be that long if she "never" cooks spaghetti. I asked and she said:
"I cooked it once a long time ago."
I can just see my kids writing stuff like this about me someday. They already gave me a hard time for not knowing which produce qualifies as fruits. (How could a zucchini be a fruit????)
Nonsensical conversations - the stuff families are made of.
ReplyDeleteOMG so timely. I learned from my daughter just last week that cucumber is a fruit. If it weren't for her I wouldn't have known the difference between poisonous and venomous.
ReplyDeleteAs for spaghetti, I just use the cook time on the side of the box, though the duration will likely vary depending on altitude and how old the spaghetti is. My husband (a native Italian) figures it out by tasting it and is appalled by my method.
Botanically, a fruit is a seed-bearing structure that develops from a flower. Zucchini meets that definition of fruit.
ReplyDeleteBut in culinary terms, fruit can instead mean pretty much any edible part of a plant as long as it's sweet.
So tomatoes, zucchini, and green beans are fruits in the botanical sense, but vegetables in the culinary sense.
I read that all produce should be considered vegetables and fruit should be a subcategory of vegetables.
DeleteI love your books do you have anymore coming out?
ReplyDeleteThanks! I just put one up for preorder. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FKT7W1S/
DeleteAs a pasta lover myself, I can say that there are quite a few variables to the length of time it takes to cooking spaghetti noodles. Are the store bought dried, store bought refrigerated, fresh made with or with out eggs as an ingredient, al dente vs soft
ReplyDeleteVery true. That's why I said to look at the box!
Delete