Lou Hughesele

NoodiMag Volume 8

Welcome to NoodiMag, the container for all my noodling on noodles, pastas, and all related topics. In today’s NoodiMag, I give you small plates. There are witnesses to my skepticism of small plates, and also I have an appreciation for the fact that chefs and noodle correspondents alike have to play with form every once in a while and break out of the rigidity of the multi-course meal. I hope my small plates add up to a hearty feast for you. If not, fear not, we will return to our usual structure shortly. 

Pasta Shapes Consumed: Spaghetti; Fettuccine; Miniature Shells; Macaroni; Mini Penne Rigate; Pad Thai Noodles; Rice Rotini

Total Pasta Shapes To Date: 20

Plate One: 

The practice of abstaining from leavened or potentially leavened products and then returning to them after a week did its work on me. Beyond all the specifics of the matzah and the story of the Exodus, the real intention is taking a step back to consider your habits and returning from this proverbial wilderness with appreciation for the wondrousness of glutinous products and, if necessary, realignment with your values. I recognized during this week how much I reach for pastas for convenience and comfort. While not always very nutritious or even enjoyable, they reliably leave me less hungry than before without much effort. I have no moralizing to do about this; sometimes this is the sole work of food. But I have found it helpful to recognize. I was made to get more creative. It turns out there are myriad other ways to become less hungry than before with little effort besides grabbing a box of macaroni (shells) and cheese from the pantry. And so I came around to a new orientation to the relative privilege I have in my access to foodways that allow me to feed myself without thought or effort. What luck. May everyone come to know this access in our lifetimes. 

Plate Two: 

The experience also confirmed a truth about your noodle correspondent that must be revealed. I hate spaghetti. It is the worst noodle. After looking forward to eating pasta for a week, the first chametz I consumed was a bowl of spaghetti. It left me wondering if I actually like pasta at all. (I do.)
I am not particularly fond of long pastas on the whole, but spaghetti especially is just unpleasant to me. The issue I find is in its poor twirlability and thus the messiness with which it enters the mouth. Angel hair, linguine, fettuccine; all these long noodles are thin enough or flat enough to properly twirl upon the fork. They can produce a neat package that easily enters the mouth without leaving a mess of sauce in their wake. Spaghetti on the other hand, thick and round, is unwieldy. “But, Lou!” you protest, “You like bucatini! Bucatini is unwieldy!” Yes, bucatini is unwieldy, and it also has the novelty and the bite to make it WORTH IT. Spaghetti gives me nothing but hassle. And the spoon trick doesn’t really work, so don’t talk to me about it. 

Plate Three: 

We have to talk about forks. Do you know that forks became popularized in Italy and the rest of Europe and then the world specifically for the purpose of eating pasta? For most of human history, we ate using utensils such as spoons, knives, chopsticks, and our beautiful g-d-given hands. The first recorded fork was created in the 14th Century, and the response to that wretched inventor was, “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this? G-d already gave me these beautiful hands with which to pick up solid foods and these beautiful spoons with which to bring liquids to my g-d-given mouth.” For some, they offered an additional, “I already have these beautiful chopsticks with which to bring beautiful, pliable, slurpable noodles up to my mouth. What do I need that for?” For centuries, the world beyond Italy continued with these reactions. This is until presented regularly with plates of hot, saucy pasta. At this, the judgmental respondents said, “Oh, we get it now, our bad.” And so the fork grew in popularity alongside pasta. How did we end up with multiple kinds of very special forks for things that aren’t pastas? I couldn’t begin to guess. 

Plate Four:

I learned this week that, five years ago, Barilla made a set of playlists on Spotify that are supposed to be timed perfectly for cooking specific pastas. They’re either nine, ten, or eleven minutes long, of course. As such, there’s only about five songs per playlist. For a playlist that short, every track counts. They’re mostly Italian tracks that I’m not familiar with and one or two American songs thrown in. Some of these are nice pop songs by the likes of Harry Styles and Shawn Mendes. But some of them are wild choices!! I am most struck by how “Pleasant Melancholy Penne” includes “For Her” from Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters which… I would not describe as pleasant melancholy. It requires a trigger warning. Probably for the best that they only got around to four pasta shapes, each with two playlists, before abandoning this project. I would’ve been much better at this, but, alas, Barilla neglected to hire me. It’s also too bad that I can never listen to these playlists as originally uploaded, on account of my departure from Spotify last year due to their evil doing. Oh well!!

Plate Five: 

Okay, I couldn’t resist quickly making my own “Pleasant Melancholy Penne.” Now you can moodily and pleasantly make penne without need of a timer or a trigger warning. 

Thanks for reading (and listening)! Maybe next time will be better. 

Works Cited:Montanari, M. (2021).  A Short History of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce: The Unbelievable True Story of the World’s Most Beloved Dish. (G. Conti, Trans.) Europa Editions.