Pasta Sticking to Walls Doesn’t Guarantee Cooked Perfection
The Claim
If you throw a piece of pasta at the wall and it sticks, the pasta is perfectly ready for human consumption.
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When cooking pasta, it can be hard to know exactly when it’s ready. It can get overcooked quickly; and testing it involves pulling boiling hot pasta from the pot and shoving it in your mouth. That can be scary for some people, so an alternative method was devised.
Misbar’s Analysis
It’s hard to be sure who first threw spaghetti on the wall, but at least one website estimates that it’s from a 50s cookbook. The cookbook claims that Italian Americans came up with the method, but it’s impossible to say for certain.
If pasta sticks to a wall, that pasta is sticky. That does not mean that it’s cooked right, just that the outside has liquified a bit. The inside may be crunchy and undercooked, especially if the water was particularly hot. Even worse, it could be overcooked and mushy.
Ultimately, the most accurate way to cook pasta perfectly is to follow the box’s instructions and taste it for yourself. Throwing it at the wall is not only wildly inaccurate, but it also can leave a starchy mark on your wall.
