8 ms·

Uh-Oh: A story of SpaghettiOs and forgotten history

82 points by samclemens 2y ago

Tao3300 2y ago
I love so much about that TV guide recipe insert. The border art, the Kalligraphia font of Partridge Family / Peter, Paul, & Mary fame... but damn those gelatin salads always sound revolting.
estebarb 2y ago
I thought it was about an operating system. Spoiler: it's not.
- mauvehaus 2y ago
  Uh oh! Somebody missed out on some pop culture! Dumb question for the folks with kids: how are they indoctrinating the kiddos these days? I remember SpaghettiOs ads from Saturday morning and after school cartoons. Do kids even still do those things? N.b.: all the people in my life with kids are weird. Delightfully weird, but weird nonetheless. I feel totally out of touch with anyone I might describe as a mainstream parent.
  - aidenscott2016 2y ago
    > Uh oh! Somebody missed out on some pop culture! A large percentage of the world is not American
  - jandrese 2y ago
    > Dumb question for the folks with kids: how are they indoctrinating the kiddos these days? TikTok and Youtube shorts.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
tomcam 2y ago
They had me at “Hello, snackers“
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> Reminder that if you were a paid subscriber on Substack, you need to set up a new account here on WordPress (sorry!) and you should have gotten a prorated refund already from Substack. Huh, weird. Just looking at the page said "Substack" to me, but apparently the characteristic Substack styling has been intentionally carried over after the author has deliberately left Substack. Which boggles my mind, since default Wordpress styling looks much better than Substack's center-of-the-page styling.
jimmaswell 2y ago
I'm going to try making that salad, sounds intriguing.
- toast0 2y ago
  The v8 gelatin salad?
  - jimmaswell 2y ago
    The one with tuna
  - Tao3300 2y ago
    How about the pizza punch with the V8 and garlic that is "guaranteed to make the teen scene"
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dtgriscom 2y ago
Back in my teen years, I would eat a single large can of SpaghettiOs for lunch. (The plain ones, of course; the hot-dog-infested cans were anathema.)
- wincy 2y ago
  Meatball spaghetti-Os were my favorite.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
fuzzfactor 2y ago
>there may not have been any predecessors in the circular-spaghetti game Except in Sicily, where this type of pasta is traditionally called anelli.
- wincy 2y ago
  Anelli-O’s just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
- masfuerte 2y ago
  You also get circular pasta in Minestrone soup, and the article mentions that canned Minestrone was a thing in the 1950s, but I don't what kind of pasta it had back then.
  - astura 2y ago
    I usually see minestrone made with ditalini[1]. Which, to be fair, are circular. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditalini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditalini
    - masfuerte 2y ago
      Packet and tinned Minestrone in the UK have spaghetti hoops (as we call them). Maybe fancier brands use ditalini but I've never see it here.
shermantanktop 2y ago
Betty Ossola really has very little trace on the internet. I did find a great picture of her inspecting olives on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/395395490195 https://www.ebay.com/itm/395395490195
- helf 2y ago
  [dead]
jandrese 2y ago
The article doesn't even address the fact that a company called Franco American makes Italian food.
- borski 2y ago
  Truly a missed opportunity to call it Frankie American, or Frankly American if we were going for irony.
quercusa 2y ago
How many of the Stouffer's TV Dinners can you recognize in the second photo? I remember the "Chinese" one (just above the SpaghettiOs) as being especially vile.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
HocusLocus 2y ago
Turning "pasta fazool" into a real product was a stroke of genius. Excellent essay on an undiscovered person! But would their research published into the blank space on Wikipedia be greeted with "this article lacks sources/ link context"? It was okay to compliment women positively on their 'looks' in news articles in the 1950s who ever they were. It was even okay to use that in a teaser vignette of an article, the opening part that is to capture readers. Or a photo caption. The author claims to find this depressing, but I'll wager Betty Ossola did not. No crime was committed here, and the publicity helped her brand. Even the silliest gaffe of all, a headline that crows that she has "has a Husband", seems something the Husband would rib her about and (nevertheless) was positive in nature. What if the headline said "is yet unmarried"? Still positive. To find offense in historical things too often people have to imagine some entire upside-down world they think would have been a better world, and imagine that many things that are the result of what they perceive as 'comments of negative value' simply rather have been left unsaid. A lot of positivity in the world simply not there, and people just didn't say as much in that pretend-world. "The past is a different country, people do things differently there." ~ L. P. Hartley The present depresses me sometimes as well. There has always been a cultural contingent that follows the First Lady as a fashion icon and even an independent spirit and even awards self-praise for the idea for disconnecting their attention to her with the husband's politics. And follows her charity outreach and autonomous actions. It actually expresses respect for women with these political confines. All until Melania Trump. The first First Lady it was okay to hate and to ignore. And she received attention (and out of context misreporting) for wearing a shirt that said "I don't care, do u?" which was directly about the media phenomenon that was so sudden in our history. She felt personally stung by it and still holds her head high. And she has the 'looks' too! I would like to see if Betty Ossola can become a Wikipedia article, I'll work on it in my spare time.
- vel0city 2y ago
  > The first First Lady it was okay to hate and to ignore I don't know, there was lots of hate and dislike for Nancy Reagan and Hilary Clinton. Seems like a lot of people thought "Just say no" was pretty asinine and out of touch. And FWIW, I think she deserved the coverage she did wearing the "I don't care, do u?" jacket. Sure, whatever, she meant it to be pointed towards left-wing haters and wasn't supposed to be directed towards the immigrant child separation crisis. But there's a time and place to make a statement like that. Wear it at some fundraising dinner or other public event, not in some place where you're going to visit an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Not when there's such a massive chance for that statement to get misunderstood.
vel0city 2y ago
I'd love to see a return of the aluminum containers for frozen dinners. Lazy Dog sells fresh-made take-home dinners (albeit at restaurant prices) in aluminum trays, and it seems superior to those plastic ones. Cooking the food in the plastics, having the tray be pretty much unrecyclable, being mostly limited to only cooking in the microwave as most of those plastic trays couldn't stand a 350F oven for long, pretty terrible experience overall with plastic IMO. I never really lived in the time when those aluminum trays were a thing though. What were some of the big negatives, other than the obvious cost aspect? Durability? I guess microwavable issues?
- buescher 2y ago
  They took forever in the oven, plus however long it took your oven to heat up.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    I get that. So microwavable issues. I'm probably an odd-ball though. If there's oven directions, I almost always go with those. Usually more evenly heated, things can be crispier instead of just soggy, etc. My countertop convection oven heats up pretty quick and uses its fan to cool off pretty fast as well when done, so I can often get a set it and forget it kind of deal reheating frozen foods in it once I dial in the time/temp on convection mode for whatever dish I'm making. I also tend to let a lot of my pre-made frozen foods thaw in the fridge the day before cooking to speed up cooking times. Once again that usually takes some trial and error to dial in the cook times as the packaging pushes you to keep the food frozen until cooking.
    - OJFord 2y ago
      > My countertop convection oven Thank you; I'm with you! I'm not sure I could even bring myself to buy one over it. (I decided not to on cost vs savings basis before having to make that choice, since time to preheat isn't something I generally care about so that's not a benefit to me.)
    - buescher 2y ago
karaterobot 2y ago
Did anybody read the headline and think "SpaghettiOS? Never heard of it, who can keep track of all these Linux distros?!"
Safik 2y ago
Safik2211

82 points by samclemens 2y ago

I love so much about that TV guide recipe insert. The border art, the Kalligraphia font of Partridge Family / Peter, Paul, & Mary fame... but damn those gelatin salads always sound revolting.

estebarb 2y ago

I thought it was about an operating system. Spoiler: it's not.

mauvehaus 2y ago
Uh oh! Somebody missed out on some pop culture! Dumb question for the folks with kids: how are they indoctrinating the kiddos these days? I remember SpaghettiOs ads from Saturday morning and after school cartoons. Do kids even still do those things? N.b.: all the people in my life with kids are weird. Delightfully weird, but weird nonetheless. I feel totally out of touch with anyone I might describe as a mainstream parent.
- aidenscott2016 2y ago
  > Uh oh! Somebody missed out on some pop culture! A large percentage of the world is not American
- jandrese 2y ago
  > Dumb question for the folks with kids: how are they indoctrinating the kiddos these days? TikTok and Youtube shorts.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

tomcam 2y ago

They had me at “Hello, snackers“

thaumasiotes 2y ago

> Reminder that if you were a paid subscriber on Substack, you need to set up a new account here on WordPress (sorry!) and you should have gotten a prorated refund already from Substack. Huh, weird. Just looking at the page said "Substack" to me, but apparently the characteristic Substack styling has been intentionally carried over after the author has deliberately left Substack. Which boggles my mind, since default Wordpress styling looks much better than Substack's center-of-the-page styling.

jimmaswell 2y ago

I'm going to try making that salad, sounds intriguing.

toast0 2y ago
The v8 gelatin salad?
- jimmaswell 2y ago
  The one with tuna
- Tao3300 2y ago
  How about the pizza punch with the V8 and garlic that is "guaranteed to make the teen scene"

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dtgriscom 2y ago

Back in my teen years, I would eat a single large can of SpaghettiOs for lunch. (The plain ones, of course; the hot-dog-infested cans were anathema.)

wincy 2y ago
Meatball spaghetti-Os were my favorite.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

fuzzfactor 2y ago

>there may not have been any predecessors in the circular-spaghetti game Except in Sicily, where this type of pasta is traditionally called anelli.

wincy 2y ago
Anelli-O’s just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
masfuerte 2y ago
You also get circular pasta in Minestrone soup, and the article mentions that canned Minestrone was a thing in the 1950s, but I don't what kind of pasta it had back then.
- astura 2y ago
  I usually see minestrone made with ditalini[1]. Which, to be fair, are circular. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditalini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditalini
  - masfuerte 2y ago
    Packet and tinned Minestrone in the UK have spaghetti hoops (as we call them). Maybe fancier brands use ditalini but I've never see it here.

shermantanktop 2y ago

Betty Ossola really has very little trace on the internet. I did find a great picture of her inspecting olives on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/395395490195 https://www.ebay.com/itm/395395490195

helf 2y ago
[dead]

jandrese 2y ago

The article doesn't even address the fact that a company called Franco American makes Italian food.

borski 2y ago
Truly a missed opportunity to call it Frankie American, or Frankly American if we were going for irony.

quercusa 2y ago

How many of the Stouffer's TV Dinners can you recognize in the second photo? I remember the "Chinese" one (just above the SpaghettiOs) as being especially vile.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

HocusLocus 2y ago

Turning "pasta fazool" into a real product was a stroke of genius. Excellent essay on an undiscovered person! But would their research published into the blank space on Wikipedia be greeted with "this article lacks sources/ link context"? It was okay to compliment women positively on their 'looks' in news articles in the 1950s who ever they were. It was even okay to use that in a teaser vignette of an article, the opening part that is to capture readers. Or a photo caption. The author claims to find this depressing, but I'll wager Betty Ossola did not. No crime was committed here, and the publicity helped her brand. Even the silliest gaffe of all, a headline that crows that she has "has a Husband", seems something the Husband would rib her about and (nevertheless) was positive in nature. What if the headline said "is yet unmarried"? Still positive. To find offense in historical things too often people have to imagine some entire upside-down world they think would have been a better world, and imagine that many things that are the result of what they perceive as 'comments of negative value' simply rather have been left unsaid. A lot of positivity in the world simply not there, and people just didn't say as much in that pretend-world. "The past is a different country, people do things differently there." ~ L. P. Hartley The present depresses me sometimes as well. There has always been a cultural contingent that follows the First Lady as a fashion icon and even an independent spirit and even awards self-praise for the idea for disconnecting their attention to her with the husband's politics. And follows her charity outreach and autonomous actions. It actually expresses respect for women with these political confines. All until Melania Trump. The first First Lady it was okay to hate and to ignore. And she received attention (and out of context misreporting) for wearing a shirt that said "I don't care, do u?" which was directly about the media phenomenon that was so sudden in our history. She felt personally stung by it and still holds her head high. And she has the 'looks' too! I would like to see if Betty Ossola can become a Wikipedia article, I'll work on it in my spare time.

vel0city 2y ago
> The first First Lady it was okay to hate and to ignore I don't know, there was lots of hate and dislike for Nancy Reagan and Hilary Clinton. Seems like a lot of people thought "Just say no" was pretty asinine and out of touch. And FWIW, I think she deserved the coverage she did wearing the "I don't care, do u?" jacket. Sure, whatever, she meant it to be pointed towards left-wing haters and wasn't supposed to be directed towards the immigrant child separation crisis. But there's a time and place to make a statement like that. Wear it at some fundraising dinner or other public event, not in some place where you're going to visit an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Not when there's such a massive chance for that statement to get misunderstood.

vel0city 2y ago

I'd love to see a return of the aluminum containers for frozen dinners. Lazy Dog sells fresh-made take-home dinners (albeit at restaurant prices) in aluminum trays, and it seems superior to those plastic ones. Cooking the food in the plastics, having the tray be pretty much unrecyclable, being mostly limited to only cooking in the microwave as most of those plastic trays couldn't stand a 350F oven for long, pretty terrible experience overall with plastic IMO. I never really lived in the time when those aluminum trays were a thing though. What were some of the big negatives, other than the obvious cost aspect? Durability? I guess microwavable issues?

buescher 2y ago
They took forever in the oven, plus however long it took your oven to heat up.
- vel0city 2y ago
  I get that. So microwavable issues. I'm probably an odd-ball though. If there's oven directions, I almost always go with those. Usually more evenly heated, things can be crispier instead of just soggy, etc. My countertop convection oven heats up pretty quick and uses its fan to cool off pretty fast as well when done, so I can often get a set it and forget it kind of deal reheating frozen foods in it once I dial in the time/temp on convection mode for whatever dish I'm making. I also tend to let a lot of my pre-made frozen foods thaw in the fridge the day before cooking to speed up cooking times. Once again that usually takes some trial and error to dial in the cook times as the packaging pushes you to keep the food frozen until cooking.
  - OJFord 2y ago
    > My countertop convection oven Thank you; I'm with you! I'm not sure I could even bring myself to buy one over it. (I decided not to on cost vs savings basis before having to make that choice, since time to preheat isn't something I generally care about so that's not a benefit to me.)
  - buescher 2y ago

karaterobot 2y ago

Did anybody read the headline and think "SpaghettiOS? Never heard of it, who can keep track of all these Linux distros?!"

Safik 2y ago

Safik2211