{"id":96855,"date":"2024-01-04T09:24:34","date_gmt":"2024-01-04T14:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=96855"},"modified":"2024-01-26T13:16:01","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T18:16:01","slug":"today-is-national-spaghetti-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/today-is-national-spaghetti-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Today Is National Spaghetti Day!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article \u2013 to help celebrate National Spaghetti Day \u2013 Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to find recipes for this Italian favorite. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book \u201cFrom the Family Kitchen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favorite Italian dish? Most likely if you\u2019re not Italian you may have been introduced to the cuisine of Italy via spaghetti and meatballs. Spaghetti is so commonplace in the United States that my local grocery stores dedicate an entire aisle to various Italian pastas, as well as canned and jarred sauces.<\/p>\n

To celebrate National Spaghetti Day today, let\u2019s take a look at the dish and some recipes.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: fresh spaghetti being prepared using a pasta machine. Credit: Magic Madzik; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nineteenth Century Mentions<\/strong><\/p>\n

The earliest advertisement for pasta in the United States (including spaghetti) that I found in GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a> was from 1865. It was published in the Courrier des Etats-Unis<\/em>, a French-language newspaper from New York.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Courrier des Etats-Unis (New York, New York), 5 April 1865, page 4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When do we find spaghetti recipes in the newspaper? Well, one of the first recipes I found that included a red sauce was in 1880. The Evening Star<\/em> from Washington, D.C., under a column titled \u201cThe Household,\u201d provided readers everything from a smallpox \u201ccure\u201d to recipes for \u201ccheap waffles,\u201d crullers, and spaghetti.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 10 January 1880, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The spaghetti\/sauce recipe:<\/p>\n

Spaghetti. \u2013 This is a favorite dish at some of the best restaurants. The macaroni used should be the best Italian, and must be placed to boil in plenty of hot water. Let it cook ten or fifteen minutes, boiling hard all the while. When done it should retain some of its elasticity. If it lies perfectly flat, or sticks together, it has been too much cooked. A sauce for it is made by slowly boiling all the morning a piece of lean beefsteak (half a pound will suffice for a small family). To this you add enough canned or other tomatoes, an hour or so before serving, to give the sauce a rich red color. As much water only should be used as will leave the sauce rich and thick; this the cook will soon learn by experience. Let every one sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese on his spaghetti for himself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: spaghetti Bolognese. Credit: hozinja; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the above recipe doesn\u2019t include meatballs, it does include beef. It also appears that it is referring to dried pasta instead of fresh. The first sentence of the recipe might be an indication that spaghetti in the United States was first made popular via restaurants before it became more commonplace.<\/p>\n

Variations on a Theme<\/strong><\/p>\n

My guess is that most people enjoy their spaghetti with a red sauce like marinara, Bolognese or Pomodoro. However, there are those who like it with a white sauce. While spaghetti and meatballs seem to be an obvious pairing, the dish can include other types of meat or seafood.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: spaghetti cacio e pepe (\u201ccheese and pepper\u201d) at a restaurant in Rome. Credit: DC; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This 1900 recipe is for Chicken with Spaghetti. The spaghetti and cream sauce are poured over the cooked chicken. Celery salt and paprika are used to season the dish.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), 20 January 1900, page 11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like many different foods, it\u2019s not unusual to find a similar dish in other cultures. For example, in the United States we eat sandwiches and in Mexico they eat tortas. Here\u2019s one recipe called Spaghetti Mexican Style. Most likely, it is not really an adaption of the Italian dish and instead harkens to a Spanish dish using fideo (spaghetti-like noodles) and tomato sauce. This \u201cMexican\u201d style dish includes onions and tomatoes.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Daily Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi), 2 February 1900, page 6<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In some cases, you might not recognize the spaghetti dishes of your American ancestors, such as some of the recipes in this 1900 \u201cHousehold\u201d column from Springfield, Illinois.<\/p>\n

\"Spaghetti<\/a>
Illinois State Journal (Springfield, Illinois), 5 February 1900, page 4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article began:<\/p>\n

Spaghetti \u2013 akin to macaroni \u2013 is more delicate in flavor and more attractive in appearance than its coarser relative. It is delicious as a vegetable, entree or dessert, and in winter when green vegetables are few it serves to help the housewife over many a difficult spot in the daily menu.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: spaghetti with chicken and mushrooms. Credit: Alpha; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You probably haven\u2019t considered the \u201cvegetable\u201d or \u201cdessert\u201d qualities of spaghetti, and some of the suggested recipes might not be to your taste. Recipes include: Spaghetti with Swiss Cheese, which is basically cooked spaghetti with butter and melted Swiss cheese; Deviled Spaghetti, which includes a sauce made of \u201ctomato catsup and tabasco sauce\u201d; Spaghetti Strings, which is cooked, unbroken spaghetti with a tomato and butter sauce; and Spaghetti Roulettes that is fried and served with a cream sauce.<\/p>\n

A note about the Spaghetti Strings recipe. Spaghetti is now packaged in 10- to 12-inch noodles \u2013 but that wasn\u2019t always the case. So, cooking those unbroken noodles in that recipe might have involved cooking much larger noodles.<\/p>\n

Spaghetti for Dinner<\/strong><\/p>\n

What are your spaghetti memories as a kid? When I was in high school, my hometown actually had a drive-thru spaghetti restaurant! You could pick up a bucket of spaghetti (like a bucket of fast-food fried chicken) and garlic bread for dinner. Whether you go out or stay in and cook your grandmother\u2019s special spaghetti sauce recipe, I hope you enjoy National Spaghetti Day!<\/p>\n

Explore over 330 years of newspapers and historical records in GenealogyBank. Discover your family story! Start a 7-Day Free Trial<\/a><\/p>\n

Note on the header image:<\/em><\/strong> spaghetti and meatballs. Credit: TheCulinaryGeek; Wikimedia Commons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article \u2013 to help celebrate National Spaghetti Day \u2013 Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to find recipes for this Italian favorite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":96885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12427],"tags":[19013,58673,2020,58671],"class_list":["post-96855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-recipes","tag-food-and-recipes","tag-national-spaghetti-day","tag-newspaper-archives","tag-spaghetti"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/photo-0104-2024-featured-graphic-spaghetti-meatballs.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96855"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96883,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96855\/revisions\/96883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}