Today is National Pasta Day, and I, for one, am more than ready to celebrate. I’ve had a lifelong love affair with pasta—one that’s equal parts passion and poor judgment.
As a young man, I was known to boil an entire one-pound box of Barilla spaghetti, dump a twenty-six-ounce jar of Ragu meat sauce over it, and—yes—eat the whole thing in one sitting. No salad, no garlic bread, no shame. Just me, a fork, and a glorious mountain of carbs. I’m confident I could not do that today. Nor should anyone, unless they’re vying for a competitive eating title or trying to carbo-load for a marathon they didn’t sign up for.
I love pasta in all its glorious forms—spaghetti, fettuccine, rigatoni, penne, bowties, shells, rotini… the list goes on. There’s only one kind of pasta I don’t love (okay, I like it, just not quite as much): overcooked pasta. Pasta should be served al dente—tender, but still with a little bite. If you’re cooking strictly by the package directions, odds are you’re already in mushy territory. Knock off a minute or two and thank me later.
These days, as I try to keep my weight hovering somewhere around “simply obese” and not “morbidly obese,” I don’t consume nearly as much pasta as I did in my younger days. I still enjoy it greatly, but now I’m more likely to indulge when I’m out at a restaurant—where there’s at least some portion control. At home, my inner twenty-year-old still thinks every box is a single serving. Spoiler alert: it’s not.
Funny thing is, Italians eat far more pasta than we do in America—yet they’re generally thinner. Maybe it’s because they don’t drown it in sauce, they don’t eat from mixing bowls, and they actually stop eating when they’re full. They treat pasta more like a side dish than a main event, serving up smaller portions alongside just about every meal. Radical concepts, I know. I’m sure we’d do well to adopt some of their ways… though I’m not giving up garlic bread anytime soon.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go thaw out a hunk of Aunt Carol’s lasagna from my freezer to celebrate National Pasta Day properly. Buon appetito!