There’s a proper way to eat pasta?

Apparently, I don’t know how to eat pasta properly.  Until a few months ago, I didn’t even know there was a proper way to eat pasta.  If you want to know, I eat it with a knife and fork.  If the pasta is long or… big, I cut it into bite-sized bits with my knife, and fork it into my mouth.  This method has worked quite well for me so far.

A few months ago I went out for lunch with some friends.  We were a crowd around the table, the wine was good, and the conversation flowing.  Then, the girl next to me… I won’t name her… scolded our nice waiter for giving her a knife and fork with her pasta dish.  It always makes me nervous when my dinner companions are nasty to waiters.  Only because I worry that those nice waiters will get back at them by SPITTING IN MY FOOD instead of theirs.  

Anyway, while I was saying a quiet thank you that she had left her little tantrum until after I had received my meal, I was also wondering what she had wanted to eat her pasta with.  Her fingers maybe?  And THEN, she asked for a spoon!  And as I cut my pasta up with my knife, I thought, “Oh great, it never ends does it?  I’m supposed to eat my pasta with a bloody spoon.  A spoon!  How the hell do you eat pasta with a spoon?  God, why am I always coming across new… OK they’re probably old, rules designed to make me look like a plebe with no culture… etc. etc.”

So, I surreptitiously watched my friend twirl her spaghetti around and around in the bowel of her spoon with the tines of her fork.  When the spaghetti was finally all nice and tight around her fork, she put it in her mouth and ate it.  And I thought, OK, I can do that, next time, and forgot all about it until Monday.

I went out for lunch with some friends on Monday.  And my horrified-at-eating-pasta-with-a-knife-and-fork friend was there.  I had forgotten all about the spoon scene when I ordered the rigatoni. Then, the waitress gave me a spoon - damn her – and I realised my predicament.  My first thought was “Shit!  I know how to twirl spaghetti around the bowel of a spoon, but I don’t know how to eat rigatoni WITH A SPOON.” 

I looked around the restaurant to see if anyone else was eating rigatoni.  Of course they weren’t.  So, I started eating with my spoon in my right hand.  It didn’t seem right, so I swapped over and had my fork in my right hand.  Then, I thought “For god’s sake, WHAT am I doing?  Am I twenty years old?!  Do I really care if I’m using my spoon properly?  NO.  And that means I can eat pasta however I bloody well like. ”  And that’s when I put down my spoon and ate the rest of my pasta WITH ONLY MY FORK,.. ’cause I no longer had a knife.

OK, I’ll probably find out how to use my spoon and fork properly eventually.  But, all I’m really worried about right now is that eating pasta with a knife and fork is an offense that will cause me to lose my Italian passport.