The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving and spaghetti fun facts. As we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know.

We have decided when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with our readers in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know we will look at Spaghetti fun facts.

spaghetti fun facts

Spaghetti Fun Facts: Spaghetti is made of semolina or flour and water. Italian dried spaghetti is made from durum wheat semolina, but outside of Italy it may be made with other kinds of flour.

  • Spaghetti is the plural form of the Italian word spaghetto, which is a diminutive of spago, meaning “thin string” or “twine.”
  • January 4th is National Spaghetti Day.
  • Italians never use a spoon and a fork when eating spaghetti. This is an American habit. In Italy you simply twirl a fork against the dish.
  • Thin spaghetti served with tomato sauce dates only as far back as the 19th century, to Naples, Italy. In Naples the sauce was served with fatty meats like bacon, ham or sausage. Meatballs made with beef as an accompaniment to spaghetti started showing up in American cookbooks around World War II.
  • The world record for largest bowl of spaghetti was set in March 2009 and reset in March 2010 when a restaurant in Garden Grove, Buca di Beppo, outside of Los Angeles successfully filled a swimming pool with more than 13,780 pounds of pasta.
  • In the year 2000, over 1.3 million pounds of spaghetti were sold in American grocery stores. If all of those packages were lined up, they could circle the Earth nine times.
  • April 1 in 1957, the BBC made everyone believe that spaghetti grows on trees. At the time, spaghetti was considered by many as an exotic delicacy. The spoof program explained how severe frost can impair the flavor of the spaghetti and how each strand of spaghetti always grows to the same length. This is believed to be one of the first times television was used to stage an April Fools Day hoax.

Spaghetti Fun Facts We May Have Missed

Let us know about any spaghetti fun facts we missed. We always love to add to these lists. If we can verify the fact we will give the reader credit in the article.

Reference: Fun Facts about Spaghetti

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