The spoons are for children. All professionals agree. You should never eat your spaghetti with a spoon. The correct way to eat pasta is just with a fork.
Yet thirty years or more ago it was accepted, in America at least, that the correct etiquette when eating spaghetti was to twist the pasta around the fork with the spoon. The spaghetti was eaten with the fork, not the spoon.
Today there is a certain degree of snobbery about this method. Nowadays, those in the know prefer to use only a fork and scoff at those who also use a spoon.
The reason for the change in the etiquette of eating spaghetti is that the wide bowls now commonly used were once a rarity in both restaurants and homes outside of Italy. Pasta was frequently served on a flat plate, making the spoon essential for spaghetti.
With a bowl you don’t need a spoon. You can roll the pasta against the edge of the bowl.
The idea is to use the edge of the bowl so that you can twist the spaghetti around your fork. It’s okay if the pasta is served in a bowl rather than on a plate.
Still, it takes some practice. The key is not to put too much spaghetti on your fork at one time. Just a few strands are enough.
Turn the fork until the entire length of the spaghetti comes together, then bring it to your mouth. If you notice that there is too much spaghetti on the fork or that the ends are sagging, lower the fork and start over.
You’ll only get in trouble with spaghetti if you leave those ends dangling. If you try to suck them like the dogs in Lady and the Tramp, you’ll get splashed with sauce. Oriental noodles are made to slurp and are served in a bowl that you can pick up for that reason, spaghetti is not.
In Italy, spaghetti used to be sold by the meter. It was kept in a drawer and the merchant broke it in two so that it could be taken home more easily. Today in Italy, spaghetti is sold in shorter lengths as in all parts of the world, so it is not necessary to break them before cooking.
If the spaghetti is cooked properly, it should easily wrap the fork. If it’s overcooked, it’s more likely to slip off the fork or refuse to stay wrapped around it. This is the reason why spaghetti is often difficult to eat when served outside of Italy.
So spaghetti should be eaten with a fork. However, a spoon can be provided even in Italy. This is not like the fork that is provided in oriental restaurants with a concession to foreign ineptitude. The spoon will allow you to add the spaghetti in its sauce and remove every last drop of that sauce.
Opinions differ on whether it is correct to use bread to clean the sauce. Some authorities consider that serving bread is a characteristic of impoverished households, others accept that nowadays it is normal in restaurants. When the bread is a good quality ciabatta or focaccia, it would be a shame to pass up the opportunity to enjoy it with the sauce in the name of the old-fashioned label.
Even the pickiest spaghetti cook would be offended if he didn’t enjoy the food that has been prepared with such care. A foreigner will surely be forgiven for using a spoon to help him turn the pasta around the fork or a piece of bread to finish the sauce if he expresses a proper appreciation for both spaghetti and sauce.