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fried spaghetti
Growing up, we always ate fairly healthy, yet the single most pertinent quality of anything emerged from my mother's kitchen was that it was cooked, always, “from scratch.”
Scratch is roughly equivalent to things like flour, sugar, a minimum of salt, baking soda, corn meal, heads of lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, and onions. There were no “mixes”, no “tv dinners,” no “sugar cereals,” and in the entirety of my childhood, less than ten instances of cookies from boxes or tubes. Food rules were fairly simple: If you are hungry, eat an apple; don’t you dare say that Bisquik word in this household ever again; and yes, you can probably get away with not finishing your chicken but so-help-you if you didn’t finish your full glass of 1% milk every night.
[If they gave up in the Battle of Child vs. Milk for the evening, revenge was exacted by placing the glass in the refrigerator overnight, and busting it out – now with a nasty, thick line of dried milk where it met the glass – for your morning’s cereal. PS I have only broken like two bones in my whole life and they were both pinkies and what was I thinking getting rollerblades, anyhow.]
I’m telling you all this now as a courtesy to my mother, who will inevitably deny that there is one iota of truth to what comes next: Fried Spaghetti. Can you hear her? Can you? She’s saying “no way” and “I would never.” But she did, just once in a while. And it was excellent.
***
Nights like this when my Dishwasher Alex, heh, is out of town, I almost never cook. Cooking for one is no fun, and frankly, neither of us have the willpower when we are apart that we do when it’s just the two of us. Alone, Alex inevitably has a run-in with his old pal General Tso. And tonight, I too craved comfort of the fattiest and most carbed variety, and no amount of pinching the remaining fat around my hips succeeded in talking me out of it.
Fried Spaghetti
1 container of last night’s leftover Ronzoni spaghetti
Margarine
Freshly grated parmesan cheese
- Dump spaghetti still in the square-mold shape from the re-used deli container into a cast-iron frying pan. [It’s all we had in those days, before the blasphemy of non-stick took over the cabinets and the cast-iron were left at the curb for vagrants. Now I whine daily that I don’t have an iron pan, and yes, of course I blame my parents.]
- Add a pat of margarine.
- A few pinches of parmesan.
- Fry.
- Allow the parmesan to melt around the spaghetti, trying to break the brick up with the spatula. Let the spaghetti get brown and crisp at the edges.
- Glop onto a plate.
- Serve warm.
It wasn’t the same tonight really, without the cast-iron pan, or the transfatty-but-we-didn’t-know-it-was-bad-for-us-yet margarine. Also, my yuppie fresh spaghetti and organically churned hormone-free butter just didn’t clump right. Additionally, I ruined it by spending the entirety of my meal making promises to myself of a tomorrow full of extra situps and a bowlful of lettuce for lunch.
But, telling the Internet that my favorite recipe from my mother’s vast repertoire of fresh and healthy meals is Fried Spaghetti… Now this is a good time I couldn't have planned.
comments (14)
sounds like you're the one with the mommy issues after all, ms mcbeal
1 | David Boudreau | June 8, 2005 01:31 AM
Mmmmm. Your mother sounds like a saint. And I wouldn't trust her one lick if she didn't make the occasional fatty meal.
And if you're gonna do junk, do it right. No organic or whole wheat anything.
2 | rachel | June 8, 2005 09:02 AM
I came from the same kind of household-- and I still hold that whole "from scratch" ethic to heart. My revenge came when my parents finally broke down and starting admitting things like "wow, we like soda" and "yuck, why did I force my kid to eat all natural peanut butter? it tastes like wall paste."
3 | corie | June 8, 2005 09:47 AM
OK! Let's set the record straight.
First: Butter was used ... although there may have been lapses in judgement where margarine was substituted.
Second: The spaghetti was fried to a slightly crisp texture in deference to my preference for authentic chow mein (not the dried crisp American noodles).
Third: The whole exercize was usually an attempt to create a "quickie" meal when one or more of us had eaten too much at an earlier meal but still wanted a light dinner. Problem ... as evidenced by my rotundity ... I usually had another dinner later.
Fourth: Yes, Deb, it was good! :-)
4 | SantaDad | June 8, 2005 10:59 AM
This may be a dumb question, but I have to ask (purely in the interest of culinary science, of course, and not because I'll be running home to shove this into my fat little face): We're just talking about plain spaghetti noodles, right? Or was last night's sauce on top of last night's noodles?
5 | frostine | June 8, 2005 11:54 AM
Plain spaghetti. Works better if it's day-old, so it gets kind of tough and is easily subjected to browning.
6 | deb | June 8, 2005 12:00 PM
How odd that I thought of you last night while I made a roasted beet and tomato salad, almond encrusted tilapia and roasted mini squash while you were eating fried spaghetti...
Seriously, I go to this site just for the recipes and cooking inspiration as much as the funny stories. Keep it coming.
7 | sarah | June 8, 2005 02:48 PM
Yummmmmm we used to do the samething when I was younger, but it was always with rigatoni.
8 | Caren | June 8, 2005 03:38 PM
I like to use olive oil and fresh garlic. So bad for you, and yet, so delish!
9 | Africankelli | June 8, 2005 04:09 PM
Fried macaroni and cheese is yummy too.
10 | Nicole | June 8, 2005 07:14 PM
this morning i watched someone on the food network do this - only hers had some sort of sauce. i thought it was a remarkable coincidence, anyway.
11 | kat f. | June 9, 2005 01:16 PM
Actually, I saw EMERIL make a frittata out of old spaghetti yesterday. I'm telling you, he and I ... we're like *this*.
12 | deb | June 9, 2005 02:25 PM
How eloquent and pertinent. I too had fried spaghgetti, once in a while, as a child. (my grandmother would cringe if she khew I told) It was usually late in the summer when the tomatoes were gone and we had enough squash to - you know. You eat what gardens in the backyard produce. I was surfing to see how other people make it and ran into your commentary. Nice. And by the way? I have a cast iron skillet heating up on the stove right now and a round mound of noodles straight from the fridge. Just for old times sake!
13 | Tammy | August 24, 2005 08:49 PM
My grandmother (who'd be 112 if still with us) used to make fried spaghetti for my cousins and myself in the 1950's in Denver, Co. We thought she was the only person to ever make this dish. I haven't eaten this for over 40 years but not a day passes that I don't think of it. Cast iron skillet, tomatoes, onions, garlic & olive oil...I'm making some today.
14 | Mike | November 19, 2007 10:13 AM