In Italy spaghetti is eaten with the fork alone: three or four strands twirled against the plate, and no knife at any point. The habit is older than it looks. It dates from the noble dinners of the 1800s, when pasta was not a course of its own but something served next to the meat, and as such it followed the etiquette of vegetables, which are never cut at the table.
How do Italians eat spaghetti?
With the fork in the right hand and nothing in the left. You catch a few strands with the tips of the tines, lean the fork against a free spot on the plate and turn it until the pasta forms a small, tight roll. One roll is one mouthful. If strands are left dangling, you picked up too many: drop them and start over with fewer.
Two gestures give away a guest who does not know the rule: chopping the spaghetti into short lengths before eating, and sucking up loose strands. Both are easy to avoid by taking less pasta on the fork at a time.
Where does the ban on the knife come from?
From the way pasta was served in wealthy households two centuries ago. The rich ate a diet heavy in meat, game and fish, and those were the dishes that mattered. Pasta, plain or filled, arrived on the same plate as the roast or the poultry, as an accompaniment. It was a side, not a dish.
Grand Italian tables of the time borrowed their order of service from France. In French cooking, everything that accompanied the main dish fell under légumes, the general word for vegetables. Pasta was filed under the same heading, and with the label came the manners.
What is the vegetable rule at the table?
Vegetables reach the table already cut to size, so the fork is enough to eat them. Many are stringy, and a knife would drag through them rather than slice them. Etiquette therefore keeps the knife away from them altogether. Pasta, counted among the vegetables, inherited the same treatment and never lost it, even after it moved to the front of the menu.
When did pasta become a first course?
Later in the 19th century and into the 20th, as middle class families made it a dish in its own right and served it before the meat. That is the Italian menu we know today: primo, then secondo. The dish changed place, but the rule about the knife stayed exactly where it was.
What about mopping up the sauce with bread?
Italians call it fare la scarpetta, and it is one of the most loved gestures at a home table. Formal etiquette does not allow it, because bread is not meant to clean the plate. Among family and friends it is widely forgiven, as long as it is done neatly: a small piece of bread held on the fork, not in the fingers, passed over the sauce that is left. At a formal dinner or a business lunch it is better to leave the plate as it is.
Is a spoon allowed?
Not by Italian etiquette. Twirling against a spoon is common in restaurants outside Italy and nobody will be offended, but at an Italian table the plate does the job of the spoon. A spoon only appears with pasta served in broth, which is eaten like soup.
Does the same apply to penne, tagliatelle and ravioli?
Yes, to every shape. Tagliatelle, linguine and bucatini are twirled like spaghetti. Short pasta such as penne or fusilli is simply picked up with the fork. Ravioli and tortellini go in whole, and a large raviolo can be divided with the edge of the fork. The knife waits for the main course.
When is cutting pasta acceptable?
For small children. Cutting spaghetti for a child who cannot twirl yet is normal in every Italian family, since manners exist to make a meal pleasant for everyone at the table. For adults the rule has no exceptions, at home or in a restaurant.