Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Help! My husband wants spaghetti!

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I think Reginald should stop being so smug. He reminds me of JohnG, who took quite a whipping on another thread (and probably enjoyed it) for his "I'm better than you" attitude.

He probably _is_ JohnG.

Speaking of this, does anyone have a recipe for Raviolio's? I had it but lost it and my husband is PISSED.

Interesting interview of Michele Topor in the Boston Globe (June 14, 1998) http://www.cucinare.com/reviewmicheltopor.htm In response to the question, "Are there other dishes we think of as Italian that aren't?" she doesn't say that meatballs would not be served with spaghetti in Italy, only that they would not be served on the dish with the spaghetti. Instead, she says that they would cooked in the sauce to flavor it and then served on the side.

PISSED?? Who is this PISSED? And Raviolio's, what is this? Agents, I think PISSED might be Mr. Southern Hand. Oh, man, now we have to go to Paris AND Rome! Now we must meet somewhere else, too! Where is agent Capo? Must get message to him, he must look at his friends, no?

Actually, agent 009 does recall having meatballs in Italy in a reasonably untouristy restaurant, though not in the Rome area. Traditional Rome cuisine is actually well known for its use of the bits of animals many don't like to use, historically this cuisine came about from the less prosperous times of Rome's history though as so many tourists don't like it, it is not to easy to find.

You could just bring a can of meatballs from home and put them on the speghetti. Your husband would not know the difference.

Sister agent, hmm, would you be referring to soft bits of the animal?

Well, what's the big deal about meatballs that they can't be served on the same plate as spaghetti? Don't they have all kinds of sauces with meat or seafood mixed in and poured over the pasta?

This talk of figs and soft bits isn't allowed on a family forum, ya know.

Yes indeed. Soft bits of the animal. As well as tongues, bladders, kidneys, livers (one of my favourites is Italian calves liver) etc. I do understand Cheryl's husband's interest in meatballs. Our interest in travel is often sparked by our love of dishes which have crossed the borders and are available internationally. Certainly the first time I went to Italy I was looking forward to trying pasta. On my first trip to the Normandy area of France I was looking forward the infamous dairy products.

Oh yes, this thread takes me back. It was a few years after WWII and my late husband and I were staying on the via Roma. We stopped in at a place, I think it was LeGarden d'Italia. They served a delicious spaghetti with meatballs (all you can eat) and had an absolutely fabulous salad bar. I had a crock of French onion soup.

Please Explain, I don't think it's that they can't be served on the same plate as spaghetti, just that it's apparently not done. On the other hand, maybe they really can't. Maybe there's some bizarre magnetic repulsion force between the meatballs and the spaghetti that simply will not allow them to be in close proximity to one another. :^)

Thank you everyone! And Reginald - my husband does have culture....he just happens to love spaghetti or any pasta for that matter. He'll be extremely happy even if he doesn't have meatballs. And I for one, will try things unheardin the Pennsylvania Dutch country I come from. I would NEVER eat at a McDonals while in Europe....they shouldn't even be there.

Excuse that typing - went off the screen and couldn't see what I was doing. Just looking for those meatballs I guess.

Cheryl, it is imerative that you find out where the meatballs went. Otherwise, next thing you know they'll be looking for your figs too.

Wow! It's Halloween and a full moon. Obviously you've all "come out" tonight!!!

Capo, you may be on to something. While it is possible to have spaghetti and a single meatball on the same plate, trouble arises when one attempts to have 2 meatballs on the same plate. As we all know, opposites attract, so the inverse is also true. Hence, 2 meatballs repel (which accounts for the one that rolled onto the floor). The exception to this is in a plate of polpettini; however, this is possible only if negatively and positively charged polpettini are arranged in an alternating pattern on the plate, so as to create a neutral charge. Of course, one must eat 2 at time (one of each charge) in order to prevent the unmatched one from shooting off your plate and into the proprietor's prized Faenza ceramic vase. In rare cases, problems can arise from a single meatball on a plate of spaghetti. Black holes have taught us that an object with a large enough mass can bend time and space. This is why a plate of straight spaghettini can appear curved in the presence of a large meatball. In order for this to occur, however, it would be necessary for the meatball have a mass of 10 to the 18th power kilograms per cubic centimeter, or the equivalent of condensing Jupiter to the size of billiard ball. (To my knowledge, this has occured only once, at Avanti's Italian Diner in Bloomington, IL, which left a 1/2 mile crater and resulted in the firing of the entire kitchen staff). This brings us to the subject of "worm holes" which, theoretically, may allow for time travel itself. It Italian, this is know as the vermicelli theory, but I will refrain from going into it as I don't want to get "off topic". Cheryl, I hope this helps your husband.

Great explanation, Russ! To add a little historical background, I remember learning that after Luigi Galvani did his famous experiments on electrical conductivity in frogs' legs, he went on to experiment with the cuisines of countries other than France, including meatballs and haggis. That work became the basis of Fermi's Polpettini Theorem.

KT, I hadn't realized that that information had been declassified. I am behind on my reading of Scientific Cuisine. That reminds me that Professor Boy-ar-dee had claimed to first discover worm holes, but he as never able to document his so-called Spaghetti-O holes. He did however, postulate that it is possible that the famous meatball did not actually roll onto the floor, but rather, that it spontaeously disappeared, only to reappear in an alternate universe, perhaps Newark. Called the Quantum Meatball Theory, it was discovered in his papers which were found after his death as a result of a freak rolling pin accident.