Spaghetti Whoops!

You’re in a restaurant and things are going well but you have made what could be a fundamental mistake. You have ordered some kind of spaghetti. Not that there’s anything wrong with such a noodletastic meal in itself, it’s just that when it comes to eating it a disaster could potentially be lurking just around the corner.

How do you handle it? The whole wrapping it round a fork never really works because however dutifully you do it, there is always a strand that gets away, ends up leaving a trail everywhere or just falls back onto the plate.  And what’s with the spoon? It would be easier to pile the spaghetti onto the spoon and eat it that way but apparently you are not supposed to do that. You are constantly aware that people are watching you wrestle with the food as it fails to conform to your directions.

There are two options. One is to cheat, distract your fellow diners with something intriguing (for example; “Was that a reindeer outside?” or “look President Obama is on that table over there.”) and while they are not looking wildly cut your spaghetti into much smaller pieces and hope nobody will notice. Or you can follow the rules as to how you should actually eat spaghetti.

Never let it be said that we are not educational when we want to be so here is how to avoid those embarrassing spaghetti work outs....

1. Hold the fork in your hand as if you are going to poke the spaghetti. Don’t do that though because it will make no difference, however much satisfaction you might gain. Scoop up a small amount of noodles on your fork and raise it well above the plate. Don’t take too much because you’ll either have to put far too much in your mouth or it will all just fall back in a big dollop.
2. Put the prongs of the fork straight down onto a part of the plate where there is no food (this shouldn’t be a problem given how enormous restaurant plates nowadays are)
3. Twirl the fork round to gather the noodles round the prongs. Gather it all up and plonk it in your mouth.

You might call it spaghettiete! And no, you don’t really need the spoon but you can use it to steady the process. If this doesn’t work, never order spaghetti or noodles again.  In the meantime happy noodling!