Spaghetti

Spaghettoni hung to dry
Type	Pasta
Place of origin	Italy
Main ingredients	Semolina or flour, water
Cookbook: Spaghetti   Media: Spaghetti

Spaghetti (Italian: [spaˈɡetti]) is a long, thin, solid, cylindrical pasta.^[1] It is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine. Like other pasta, spaghetti is made of milled wheat, water, and sometimes enriched with vitamins and minerals. Italian spaghetti is typically made from durum-wheat semolina.^[2] The pasta is usually white because refined flour is used, but whole wheat flour may be added.^[3] Spaghettoni is a thicker form of spaghetti, while spaghettini is a thinner form. Capellini is a very thin spaghetti, while vermicelli refers to intermediate thicknesses.

Originally, spaghetti was notably long, but shorter lengths gained in popularity during the latter half of the 20th century and now it is most commonly available in 25–30 cm (10–12 in) lengths. A variety of pasta dishes are based on it and it is frequently served with tomato sauce, meat or vegetables.

Spaghetti is the plural form of the Italian word spaghetto, which is a diminutive of spago, meaning 'thin string' or 'twine'.^[1]

Pasta has its origin in an ancient, thin, and generally unleavened bread from the Middle East, known under various names including Asian Bread in texts of antiquity, and as lakhsha in the Persian Sasanian Empire. This bread was flattened, sometimes by hand and at other times with a rolling pin, and was occasionally dried for preservation. Under the Sasanian Empire, this bread took on the name rishta when it was cut into strips or strings before drying. Rishta may derive from the Iranian term risnatu, records of which exist as far back as the 2nd millenium BC.^[4]

Coinciding with this emerging tradition of drying pasta in Persia, pasta was eaten throughout antiquity in Roman and Greek societies after arriving from the Middle East.^[4][5] There too, pasta was sometimes dried, most frequently the long, stretched doughs.^[6] In the 7th century, Arabs conquered Persia, and thereafter spread the dried pasta custom throughout the lands they occupied, which included Sicily from the 9th century. There, the dried pasta practice became associated with the European traditions of making fresh pasta, and the name itriyya entered the language, meaning "long-form dried pasta".^[7]

Spaghetti gained popularity throughout Italy in the 19th century after the establishment of spaghetti factories, enabling mass production.^[8]

Through the end of the 13th century, the Venetian merchant and aventurer Marco Polo travelled into Asia, detailing his expedition in The Travels of Marco Polo. Two centuries later, the geographer Giovanni Battista Ramusio read Polo's accounts in preparation for a new edition. In one his stories, Polo told of the preparations made by the people of Sumatra with sago flour, likening them to the pastas and lasagnas he was familiar with in Italy, and described how he brought back samples to Venice. Misunderstanding this, in his 1559 publication Ramusio conveyed that Marco Polo had discovered pasta in China and brought it to Italy.^[9]

This legend persisted, and was developed further in a 1929 article in the American industry newsletter the Macaroni Journal, where the author credited the invention of spaghetti to a member of Polo's crew named Spaghetti. In the story, Spaghetti made landfall in China in search of water. On shore, he encounted a farm woman stirring a batter which hardened in the hot, dry climate. Realising this would store well on long voyages, Spaghetti returned to the boat with some batter and kneaded it, formed it into long strips, and cooked it in the salty sea water.^[10][11]

Spaghetti is made from ground grain (flour) and water.^[12] Whole-wheat and multigrain spaghetti are also available.^[2]

Pasta can be made at home, cutting sheets of flattened dough with a knife into ribbons,^[13] rather than spaghetti with circular cross-section. Some pasta machines have a spaghetti attachment with circular holes that extrude spaghetti, or shaped rollers that form cylindrical noodles.^[14]

Spaghetti can be made by hand by manually rolling a ball of dough on a surface to make a long sausage shape. The ends of the sausage are pulled apart to make a long thin sausage. The ends are brought together and the loop pulled to make two long sausages. The process is repeated until the pasta is sufficiently thin. The pasta knobs at each end are cut off leaving many strands which may be hung up to dry.^[15]

Fresh spaghetti is usually cooked within hours of being formed. Commercial versions of fresh spaghetti are manufactured.^[16]

The bulk of dried spaghetti is produced in factories using auger extruders. While essentially simple, the process requires attention to detail to ensure that the mixing and kneading of the ingredients produces a homogeneous mix, without air bubbles. The forming dies have to be water cooled to prevent spoiling of the pasta by overheating. Drying of the newly formed spaghetti has to be carefully controlled to prevent strands sticking together, and to leave it with sufficient moisture so that it is not too brittle. Packaging for protection and display has developed from paper wrapping to plastic bags and boxes.^[17]

• 
  A hydraulic press with an automatic spreader by the Consolidated Macaroni Machine Corporation, Brooklyn, New York. This machine was the first to spread long cut alimentary paste products onto a drying stick.
• 
  An industrial dryer for spaghetti or other long goods pasta products, also by the Consolidated Macaroni Machine Corporation
• 
  An artistic arrangement of dried spaghetti
• 
  Dried spaghetti measured with a "spaghetti measure". One portion of dried pasta weighs 116 g (4+1⁄8 oz), twice the amount of one serving on the package (12 mm circle or 60 g.). The measure can portion out 1, 2, 3 or 4 servings based on the diameter of the circle.

In Naples, spaghetti is thinner than it is in the United States.^[18] Spaghettoni is a thicker spaghetti and spaghettini is a thinner spaghetti, although it is thicker than the pasta of Naples.^[19]

Fresh or dry spaghetti is cooked in a large pot of salted, boiling water and then drained in a colander (Italian: scolapasta). Utensils used in spaghetti preparation include the spaghetti scoop and spaghetti tongs.

In Italy, spaghetti is generally cooked al dente (lit. 'to the tooth'), fully cooked but still firm to the bite. It may also be cooked to a softer consistency.

Spaghettoni takes more time to cook than regular spaghetti, and spaghettini less time.

In southern Italy, spaghetti is sometimes placed in a dishcloth and broken into pieces to be served with vegetables, beans or in a broth. This originated at a time when the region was very poor, and broken pieces of spaghetti were sold at discount to prevent waste. Offcuts are still sold in parts of Italy, alone and as part of pasta mista (an assortment of pasta shapes), and some factories donate their broken pieces to hospitals and nursing homes.^[20]

• 
  Spaghetti being placed into a pot of boiling water for cooking
• 
  Draining the water from boiled spaghetti
• 
  A spaghetti scoop
• 
  Spaghetti tongs

An emblem of Italian cuisine, spaghetti is frequently served with tomato sauce, which may contain various herbs (especially oregano and basil), olive oil, meat or vegetables. Other spaghetti preparations include amatriciana or carbonara. Grated hard cheeses, such as pecorino romano, Parmesan, and Grana Padano, are often sprinkled on top.

Below are some of the most important spaghetti dishes:

• Spaghetti alle vongole^[21][22]
• Spaghetti aglio e olio^[23]
• Spaghetti alla puttanesca^[24]
• Spaghetti alla Nerano^[25][26]

• Spaghetti dishes
• 
  Spaghetti alle vongole
• 
  Spaghetti aglio e olio
• 
  Spaghetti alla puttanesca
• 
  Spaghetti alla Nerano

In the Philippines, a popular variant is the Filipino spaghetti, which is distinctively sweet with the tomato sauce sweetened with banana ketchup or sugar. It typically uses a large amount of giniling (ground meat), sliced hot dogs, and cheese. The dish dates back to the period between the 1940s to the 1960s. During the American Commonwealth Period, a shortage of tomato supplies in the Second World War forced the development of the banana ketchup.^[27][28][29] Spaghetti was introduced by the Americans and was tweaked to suit the local Filipino predilection for sweet dishes.^[30]

By 1955, annual consumption of spaghetti in Italy doubled from 14 kilograms (31 lb) per person before World War II to 28 kilograms (62 pounds).^[31] By that year, Italy produced 1,432,990 tons of spaghetti, of which 74,000 were exported, and had a production capacity of 3 million tons.^[31]

Pasta provides carbohydrates, along with some protein, iron, dietary fiber, potassium, and B vitamins.^[34] Pasta prepared with whole wheat grain provides more dietary fiber^[34] than that prepared with degermed flour.

A sequence in the 1955 animated movie Lady and the Tramp features the title characters sharing a plate of spaghetti, culminating in an accidental kiss as they meet, eating the same strand of spaghetti. It is considered an iconic scene in American film history.^[35]

The BBC television program Panorama featured a hoax program about the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland on April Fools' Day in 1957.^[36]

Poorly structured computer source code is often described as spaghetti code.^[37] A similar and more physical concept, "cable spaghetti", applies to poor cable management.

In women's clothing, very thin straps supporting a dress or topwear are called "spaghetti straps".^[38]

The term spaghetti Western refers to Western movies made in Europe which were produced and directed by Italians.^[39]

• List of pasta
• Spaghetti alla chitarra (or maccheroni alla chitarra)

• Montanari, Massimo (2021) [2019 (in Italian)]. A Short History of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce. Translated by Conti, Gregory. London: Europa Editions. ISBN 978-1-78770-328-5.
• Serventi, Silvano; Sabban, Françoise [in French] (2002) [2000 (in Italian)]. Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food. Translated by Shugaar, Antony. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-12442-3.
• Zanini De Vita, Oretta; Fant, Maureen B. (2013). Sauces & Shapes: Pasta the Italian Way. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-08243-2.

• Media related to Spaghetti at Wikimedia Commons

• The dictionary definition of spaghetti at Wiktionary