Whenever I boil a pot of spaghetti for dinner, I always save one straw from the pack and nibble on it as I go about making the rest of dinner. No other pasta. Just spaghetti. Anyone else have this habit?
I'm pretty sure this is something that I've done since I was a kid. I remember my mom handing me a stick of spaghetti, probably to keep me from whining until dinner was ready. At some point, it just became a ritual.
This has almost nothing to do with taste, seeing as how raw pasta is pretty bland stuff. Come to think of it, I don't actually eat much of the spaghetti at all. It's more about the sensation of holding the spaghetti between my teeth without breaking it and letting it roll across my tongue. Every so often, I break a bit off the end, but that's about it. My own weird little ritual.
Do you ever do this? Do you have any of your own food rituals?
(Image: Flickr member MrB-MMX licensed under Creative Commons)
Floral Drink Dispen...

My husband and my 10 year old daughter like raw spaghetti too!
My mom does that too. She also does it with raw rice and bulgur wheat. Basically anything dried, she will chew on it!
yep, i love it.
Love it. Also love raw percatelli pasta. has a nice crunch to it.
My boyfriend does this too! I always tell him he's a weirdo when he does it, but I guess it's not so weird after all. :)
Interesting...I've never heard of this. I guess its a way to keep your mouth busy from tasting/snacking as you go.
My son does this. Has been doing it since he was six...
Yeah, my fiance always seems to wander into the kitchen and munch on the raw pasta. In the event that I've already put all the pasta in the pot, he'll fish a partially cooked noodle out and munch on it. I don't get it...
Even better (for me), is like when the spaghetti has only been in the boiling water for about 1 minute. After cooking for 1 minute, I take about 15 sticks out and snack away until dinner is ready.
I thought everyone did this.
I totally do that, too!
My Mom always said "You'll get worms"!
I do this too! I also love eating frozen corn. I think it tastes better than cooked corn, haha.
i used to do this...don't remember how i got in the habit, don't remember when i stopped. funny!
This is so strange for me. I don't know that some will do this :) Maybe it's time I start nibbling on raw sphaghetti :)
I don't do it every time anymore, but I definitely did when I was a kid, and still do occasionally.
ewww. so weird.
I used to hear the "you'll get worms" thing as well, but always ate a stick anyway.
My brother and I totally used to eat raw pasta!
Also, my mom used to let us have a small chunk of raw pizza dough after it came out of the bread machine, while she was assembling the rest of the pizza toppings. We'd take a spoonful of sauce, a bit of ground beef (this was cooked!), a few mushroom pieces, and some cheese, mush it all into the raw dough and pop it into our mouths.
Oh, and I LOVED to eat frozen bread. Had to be the Dempster's white, though.
Weird...
@enchantress - i used to LOVE frozen potato bread crusts. i'd help every time my mom made (Baltimore-style) crab cakes, since she'd use a cubed-up slice of bread sans crusts for her mixture.
mmm, now i crave potato bread.
I've done this since I was a kid. The texture is perfect for nibbling!
When I was a pre-teen I used to sneak raw spaghetti and dip it in chocolate syrup. It was one of life's few happy moments for me at that time. Haven't thought of doing that since; it's weird and comforting that other people eat uncooked spaghetti too.
I did that as a kid, and still do occasionally.
my 4 year old and dog love raw spaghetti.
I like to eat slices of raw potatoes. Although the aftertaste is rather blah.
The 11 year old I babysit does this, she has been doing this since she was 5! Crazy!
I haven't eaten raw pasta since I was a kid but my mother used to give it to us as kids as she was cooking dinner to get us by until dinner was ready. I always liked it, I'll have to try it again...
I did it as a kid. My mom would let us ends all the broken off ends at the bottom of the box.
I do this as well, I have no idea why. But then again, I also eat peanuts with the shells.
I would occasionally do it as a kid because my mom did it, but I fell out of the habit as an adult. My mom still does it, and like happiness above, she also eats raw potatoes when she cooks with them. Even worse, she always used to pick at the raw (yes RAW) ground beef when she'd make meatloaf. People have given her such a hard time about it that she finally stopped in recent years, but if you see her make meatloaf or meatballs now, you can tell she still wants to do it, bless her heart. In her defense, she never once got sick.
JulesH: Sometimes I eat peanuts or sunflower seeds with the shells too.
A happy memory. I did this as a kid. It was yummy.
I do it too!
Love raw spaghetti. Also elbow macaroni, its doesn't taste anything special but it so crunchy. And raw potato with a little s&p. And frozen french fries!
I do this too - just one piece...
I do this too!
I guess there's people out there who eat couch cushions and dirt so this shouldn't be surprising...
i used to eat a lot of raw spaghetti as a kid, and raw oats, right out of the quaker canister.
Wow! A lot more people do this than I realized! I thought I was strange, my husband sure looks at me like I am when I do this :)
Absolutely! I've done this since I was a kid. I was the child who'd eat her way through her dry-macaroni necklace on the bus ride home from school then have nothing left to actually show Mom. :)
Yep... raw soba noodles are delicious :)
Oh man, I'm late on this, but I definitely do it too.
Now, here's my tip: take a pasta noodle, spaghetti can work, but bigger noodles are better.
Discreetly place it in your mouth.
Now go up to a family member and say, 'I think there's something wrong with my neck.'
Grab your chin and turn your head from side to side while biting into the pasta noodle. Make sure they don't notice you chewing.
It freaks 'em out every time.
One straw at a time? I used to do this with whole packages of spaghetti and the like...