This cartoon brought me up short.
(WuMo)
My practice has been to take spaghetti out of the box and break the strands into four smaller pieces before cooking it. That way I don’t have to go through what (to me) is the tedious business of winding long strands of spaghetti on the fork when eating. But maybe for some, that is the appeal of spaghetti.
I refer to long strands of cooked pasta as “slithery stuff”. Penne, rotini, egg noodles, and shells (in soup) are my household staples. Occasionally I do cook soba to have with a stir-fry, but break the strands into manageable pieces before cooking.
I, too, break my spaghetti into four pieces, which I initially started doing for my (then) small children to reduce the hazard of gagging/choking. It’s so much easier to eat that way and I find you get less marinara sauce on your clothes when you don’t have to twirl it onto your fork. I find it difficult to believe that it would alter the taste in any way.
I did winding for decades, but recently started cutting the spaghetti after cooking and adding sauce.
A few years ago we had a visiting student from Italy. He explained at length how each shape of pasta is designed to be prepared with one specific sauce, and that randomly mixing and matching them as we (all non-Italians) do is a crime against food.
You monster!
I guess my question is: why are you using spaghetti, if you don’t want spaghetti?