South Philly Review

The man who came up with the idea for SpaghettiOs died recently and it got me to thinking that Americans will eat pasta in any form, no matter how debased.

Remember when pasta was just plain old macaroni. Macaroni was cute, comforting and cheap. Pasta, on the other hand, is pretentious, like folks who go around greeting friends with “Ciao!” Japanese-Americans don’t go around saying “Sayonara” do they? Pasta is everything macaroni is not — elitist, aloof, something to which you add truffle oil. Does this make me anti-pasta?

The History Channel teaches us macaroni originated with the Chinese. Marco Polo visited China and brought macaroni back to Italy, where he founded the first Olive Garden. Marco Polo later became famous, changed his name from Marco to Ralph and began manufacturing polo shirts with a polo player on a horse as a logo that enabled him to charge $75 a pop. Columnist’s note: The original Polo shirt used a ravioli for its logo, but wealthy WASPs complained there was little status in a ravioli. Hence, the polo player.

Meanwhile, the Chinese, ever inscrutable, chose to call the macaroni a “noodle.” It is difficult for some of us to take the word “noodle” seriously and that is why you can buy Chinese noodles in Column A or Column B for even less than macaroni, and a lot less than pasta with truffle oil.

To gain revenge, the Italians took Chinese dumplings and turned them into ravioli. Columnist’s note: None of this explains why Yankee Doodle Dandy chose to put a feather in his cap and call it macaroni.

Other nationalities proceeded to make their own versions of dumplings, blintzes, perogies and tamales. As if the caloric content in ravioli was not high enough, the Jews added sour cream and cherries and called them blintzes. The result, over time, is the cholesterol count of Jewish men is so high, their male babies are prescribed Lipitor at the bris. All because of the blintz.

I mean no disrespect to the Poles, but when they chose to stuff their perogies with cabbage and potatoes they irretrievably lost their way. Meanwhile, the Mexicans decided to use chopped steak and a cheese filling in their tamales just to irk Joey Vento.

I’m not sure whether ravioli is singular or also can be used as the plural. My aunts and uncles used ravioli interchangeably as singular or plural, but then my family also thought the plural of “deer” was “deers.”

Do we really need for macaroni to come in different shapes and sizes? What is that about anyway? You can purchase it in the shape of bowties (this is the “Hurricane” Schwartz pasta), little ears and even wagon wheels. When my wife serves me wagon wheels, I insist she dress like Tammy Wynette so after dinner we can play cowgirl and cowboy.

I sometimes have trouble deciding whether I want linguine, angel hair or spaghetti. Which is thinner? Does it really matter? Some types of macaroni are numbered, such as linguine No. 4, spaghetti No. 2 and The Beatles Macaroni Revolution No. 9. I also like the Bob Dylan pasta, Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35.

There is a side issue for non-Italians who struggle trying to figure out the difference between gnocchi and cavatelli. Gnocchi is made from potato flour, while cavatelli is created from ricotta cheese and both look similar. The difference is, when you eat a couple of plates of the heavier gnocchi for the first time, you normally have to be rushed to Methodist Hospital with chest pains. It happens so often to non-Italians Methodist actually has a separate “gnocchi ward.”

The History Channel points out “The Da Vinci Code” refers to the relationship between Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9,” the secret Masonic recipe for red gravy and the real reason Tom Hanks decided to be in that awful movie.

Macaroni can be served in a variety of ways. We already have mentioned truffle oil. The variety only is limited by your imagination. For instance, my grandmother used to put chicken feet in her gravy. When I saw the chicken feet sticking out of the pot, I didn’t know whether to grab a fork or a can of Desenex.

I have noticed since Grandmom went to the great beyond, chicken feet in macaroni gravy has fallen into disfavor. You can’t go to a good Italian restaurant anymore and order up some chicken feet and macaroni in red sauce. Columnist’s note: In all fairness to my grandmother, she had to appease her Sicilian husband, who also liked to munch on such delicacies as lamb’s head and a smelly cheese that actually had worms crawling in and out of it. The first time my mother — his daughter-in-law — saw this cheese, she called an exterminator.

After eating Sunday dinner with my grandparents, you were inclined to grow up either as an animal rights activist or an ax murderer.