Eating Spaghetti in Naples

[joetucciarone]

How did Neapolitans eat spaghetti 120-150 years ago? This photograph, taken in 1869, shows Neapolitans eating spaghetti with their fingers:

https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c22545/

The July 30, 1905 edition of the New York Tribune carried a half-page article, “The Italian Method of Eating Macaroni,” which shows a “Neapolitan macaroni stand” with “customers eating in true Italian street fashion.” Like the Neapolitans in the 1869 photograph, the patrons were eating with just their fingers:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... -1/seq-41/

Do these photographs accurately depict how Neapolitans ate spaghetti at the end of the 19th century?

[MarcuccioV]

LOL. That would never have worked with my mom's thick robust sauce. They'd look worse than a toddler...

[bbivona]

While I wouldn't necessarily trust a turn of the century New Yorker's description of Italian culture, I think it's fairly accurate on how it was eaten by poor people. It was street food in Naples and sold to the poor to be eaten on the spot. We're not talking about something with a lot of sauce. Still, apparently King Ferdinand I also loved eating maccheroni with his hands. Here are a couple of other good articles on the custom.

https://www.ifood.it/2015/06/la-storia- ... nopei.html

https://cosedinapoli.com/culture/monsier-monzu/

[joetucciarone]

Thanks for the links to the articles; those pictures are worth a thousand words.

[amerital43]

Those photos are something. Never saw that eating style or ever heard of it. I guess there was NOTHING on those spaghettis, not even some olive oil.

[CiaoBella]

Thanks for the links, I've never seen anything like this myself either - can imagine making quite the mess eating like that!

[MariaMadonna]

Yes, thanks ! My ancestors were Casertan macaroni makers , millers, and pizza makers, so I included in my tree several illustrations of open air macaroni making and munching like those you shared.

[MariaMadonna]

Olive oil, grated cheese sauce used. Even the air drying was a skilled trade.