No, people in Italy can freely cut pasta at any time, in half or in smaller parts, before or after cooking it (for example for small children). In the Italian ... Not everyone knows that, when Italians cook spaghetti, they never break them before putting them in the hot water! It is forbidden!
That's why breaking pasta in Italy is definitely a no-go but rest assured that you won't go to jail for breaking pasta. You are just breaking a tradition and a rooted cultural habit in Italy, but you are free to eat the pasta the way it's more convenient for you.
There is no physical of chemical change in breaking pasta. It does make it easier to cook, because you don't have spaghetti sticking out of your pot, but let me explain this from the double viewpoint of being both Italian and a cook. Is it just tradition? Definitely not.
The blogger behind The View From My Italian Kitchen adds that many Italians actually consider it bad luck to break pasta. So instead, stir and swirl to ensure things cook evenly. Then you'll be left with plenty of pasta to wrap in sauce!
First of all, long noodles might not fit in a small pot unless you snap them in half. Some Italians swear that breaking pasta is bad luck, while others say it's just bad cooking form. But there's another reason why you should pay more attention to your water-to-pasta ratio.
The reason why you should not break pasta is that it's supposed to wrap around your fork. That's how long pasta is supposed to be eaten. You rotate your fork, and it should be long enough to both stick to itself and get entangled in a way that it doesn't slip off or lets sauce drip from it.
The twist wave travels faster than the bending wave, dissipating energy so that additional critical stress accumulations, which might cause subsequent fractures, do not occur. “That's why you never get this second break when you twist hard enough,” Dunkel says.
A 1967 Italian decree called the “purity law” requires that all dried pasta sold in Italy be made from durum wheat, a hard-grained, coarse strain. That varietal is considerably more difficult to use than traditional bread wheat, but it makes a pasta that holds its form during cooking without becoming soft or bland.
Most Italians seem to say that the ONLY way to eat spaghetti is by twirling it with a fork, and a fork alone. “Eating the spaghetti in this manner [with a spoon] is only for children, amateurs, and those who do not possess good table manners.”
Add the salt when the water is boiling. Using a small post is the best option to ensure your pasta will stick together. Everytime you break the spaghetti an Italian cook cries. Lowering the heat to simmer will end up with mushy pasta.
No Spoon Twirling
It's customary to set the table with a fork, knife, and spoon, and you can use your spoon to add sauce and cheese, and then to mix the pasta. However, pasta is meant to be eaten with your fork alone – no spoons to assist. Having a hard time mastering the fork twirling method?
It isn't considered rude, but it is inappropriate. Pizza is consumed in the evening at full-service restaurants where eating with your hands is always considered to be impolite. The one exception is when eating pizza al taglio as this is a form of street food usually eaten standing up for lunch.
Ketchup. Whether it's for dipping pizza crusts into, or, worse still, putting on pasta, ketchup has no place on an authentic Italian table. The Academia Barilla, run by the world's leading pasta brand, called ketchup on pasta 'a true culinary sin,' so leave it for your French fries.
No, in Italy we never put ketchup on pasta, it is not an accepted condiment for a pasta plate, and it is seen as a mortal sin to season pasta with a splash of ketchup. For this reason, no truly Italian restaurant will ever serve you a plate of spaghetti or a plate of penne sadly seasoned with ketchup.
Yes, you still need to pay the coperto, even if you don't eat the bread. One exception – in Lazio (which includes Rome), charging a coperto is illegal, but the restaurant may try to charge you for pane (bread). You can refuse the pane and avoid the charge.
At a national level, begging is legal in Italy. And even though it is forbidden to beg with children or animals, enforcement of the law is lax. But other Italian cities have also adopted their own rules.
According to Italian etiquette, you should leave a very tiny amount of food (or no food) on your plate. Leaving food on the plate is considered rude in Italy. Italy has, in fact, developed a culture that places a high value on food and eating.
Two young physicists, Ronald Heisser and Vishal Patil, found that the key to breaking spaghetti rods into two pieces is to give them a good twist: If a 10-inch-long spaghetti stick is first twisted by about 270 degrees and then bent, it will snap in two, mainly due to two effects.
Pasta is easy and cheap to make, and many different sauces are born from just a handful of ingredients, like pasta carbonara or pasta amatriciana. With just a few ingredients, Italians can create an affordable and delicious meal that can provide nutritional value and sustenance.
I've recently been testing breaking my spaghetti in half and I like it. It's easier to mix ingredients into the pasta and it's easier to dish out portions.