Why do I hate Spaghetti?

Spaghetti seems to be a classic "American" thing in spite of it's Italian roots. I never understood the draw in this generally bland and blah excuse of a meal. I guess the fact that it's essentially a 3 ingredient cheap one pot meal. Boil pasta, brown meat, add sauce mix together and eat. A blessing for the lazy or anything that has no clue what they are doing in the kitchen.

When I was a kid, I dreaded the nights I'd walk into the kitchen and see a boiling pot of pasta and a bottle of ketchup next to the stove...This always meant one thing, I would be eating garlic bread for dinner and essentially going to bed hungry.I'm not exactly sure what jailhouse my mom picked up her recipe for spaghetti but I guess I'm safe to assume it may have come from her mom, a woman not known for her skills in the kitchen. Of couse my mom's recipe included more than just ground beef, pasta and ketchup...she included LOTS and LOTS of bell pepper and onions. The fact that I saw ketchup was enough ammo to shoot down the option of going to bed with a full belly.

I've recently discovered, while working on this blog, that ketchup based pasta dishes date back to the days of the great depression, in fact it's a main ingredient of the dish known as Depression Spaghetti and this recipe was actually more widespread than I thought. I have a feeling it may have been featured in a swanky magazine, like Good Housekeeping or Harpers or something like that...I can picture it was possibly an ad for a ketchup brand disguised as a recipe.

Shitty spaghetti wasn't really the nail in the coffin for me when it came to eating it, that came when I was at a Cub Scout Camp-o-ree. I walked into the main bathroom and my spaghetti days were over. Some kid puked and left what appeared to be 2 pots of spaghetti in the restroom. It must have been a violent ordeal because it was EVERYWHERE and the smell was a cross between Spaghetti-O's and...well...vomit. I couldn't imagine why there was SO much in the bathroom, it was almost like he came directly from a spaghetti eating contest or that's what he had breakfast lunch and dinner.

Terry loves spaghetti but we rarely have it. I hate it to the point that I have to clear my mind of everything and hum while I eat it. It took me a long time to overcome my aversion to spaghetti pasta, I mainly poured meat sauce on garlic bread and called it a meal.

Just for shits and giggles...here's a copy of Depression Spaghetti I found online...brave enough to try it?
1 medium onion diced
1 lb ground meat browned with diced onion
Boil spaghetti noodles, drain once tender mix with meat mixture and add the following
1/2 stick butter melted
24 oz bottle of ketchup
1 tablespoon sugar
salt & pepper to taste

If you hate it, don't blame me...I don't eat that shit...it's less than a 5 buck meal anyway. Ever notice how poor people and people that mismanage their money eat spaghetti a lot?