Column Chronicles: Speech to Spaghetti Lovers of the World

Speech to Spaghetti Lovers of the World

Frank Cotolo
June 29, 2023

One of the most popular speeches I gave this year was to the North American Spaghetti Lovers of the World (NASLW). Here is a transcript:

Good afternoon spaghetti lovers. [screams] Hello to the pro-pasta people. [applause] I'm a proud pasta person like all of you. [shouts]

I am happy to be here at this International Spaghetti Day celebration. Spaghetti is the source - not the sauce - [laughter] of all pasta and the papa of pastas. Let's hear it for penne. Let's hear it for angel hair. Let's hear it for mafaldine, rigatoni, little shells, big shells, ziti, linguine... [applause, screams] Mangiare e ingrassare, right? Eat and get fat.

It's about time spaghetti became recognized and that facts about spaghetti become common knowledge. That's what our speakers are going to talk about while all of you sit there and become hungry for a big bowl.

Sal Cavallo d'Ferro will be speaking on the myth that Marco Polo stole spaghetti from a Chinese cook and brought it to Italy. Sal will explain the science of Noodle Differentiation and bury the myth once and for all.

My personal friend Angelo Uomoanatra will be speaking about the tenses of spaghetti. That's right, Angelo will verify that the word spaghetto is what we call a single strand of the pasta, even though no one ever speaks about a single strand. And what about the past tense of spaghetto? Or the future tense of the plural-pasta spaghetti?

Roberto Falegname will demonstrate the sixty-seven different sucking styles people use when eating spaghetti and teach you the polite ways to suck it up, as well as the correct fork-in-the-spoon twirls that create a rolling mouthful of spaghetti.

Another reason I am happy to be here is because I grew up with spaghetti. And not always with sauce. But in Brooklyn, New York, we called sause gravy. And I had bowl after bowl of spaghetti from the moment I knew how to swallow without choking and loved it with red gravy, white gravy and plain old olive oil and garlic gravy.

Now let's get on with the celebration. Give it up for our first musical act, The Fettucine Four. [applause, screams]

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.