If tomato sauce is pasta’s best friend and ketchup is all tomatoes, then ketchup on spaghetti totally makes sense, right?
Wrong. According to Italians, ‘putting ketchup on spaghetti’ is the worst thing you can do to Italian food.
Last month, Bonusfinder.com surveyed 1,400 Italian residents to identify the worst food crimes that other countries commit against authentic Italian food.
Bonusfinder.com is, strangely enough, a comparison website for sports and casino websites, and when we asked what the connection between it and the survey was, a spokesperson simply said "Bonusfinder commissioned the survey."
Well, what the survey found was that the spaghetti-ketchup offense took the top spot with 64.6% of respondents considering this pairing to be an immoral transgression. “Putting pineapple on pizza,” at 62.1%, was a close second.
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Beyond the pineapple on pizza debate
Piling fruits and condiments onto starchy entrées, however, barely scratches the surface of the wrongs that can be done to one of Europe’s most beloved cuisines. Giuseppe Agostino, chef and owner of Norwood’s Verana Cucina Italiana, weighed in on the subject.
“The biggest crime (against Italian food),” Agostino said, “is not using fresh or quality ingredients.” At his acclaimed North Jersey Italian restaurant, diners will never see “premade sauces” or “already cooked pasta bags.”
Other culinary hate crimes rounding out Bonusfinder.com’s top five include “putting pasta into cold water and then boiling it,” “cutting spaghetti or linguine with a knife” and “refusing to share food with others.” 56.9, 55.1, and 52.1% of Italians considered these actions wrong, respectively.
The American perspective
We personally think these food pairings are objectionable — or at least questionable — but not all Americans agree. When it comes to condiment-coated spaghetti, U.S. residents (according to a study from YouGov) had a similar response to their Italian counterparts. 65% of survey respondents identified this deed as “bad.” The pineapple-pizza combo, though? Only 33% of Americans agree with Italians about that, with 55% of US residents admitting to “using pineapple on their pizza.”
More:One of North Jersey's best new restaurants has a chicken parm (and more) to die for
As New Jersey residents, we feel strongly about keeping Italian food #real. Here are some other crimes we think should have made the list:
- Sticking bacon in alfredo sauce and calling it “Carbonara”
- Cooking with cheap oils
- Only filling the sides of cannoli with cream and leaving their middles a dark, airy abyss
- Melting cheese on seafood
- Olive Garden
Do you have another Italian food crime that you think the survey missed? Reach out to us @northjerseyeats.
When it comes to the refined flavors of Italia, some things are just a hard “no grazie.”
