Spaghetti Solutions: the science of breaking spaghetti in 3 and 2 pieces

August 20, 2018 10:37 PM

Danny Hillis recalled spending hours breaking spaghetti with Richard Feynman to figure out why dry spaghetti, when bent, usually broke into three pieces (see a high-speed recording; related r/Physics thread). Feynman and Hillis were stumped, and the phenomenon was finally explained in 2005. Recently, MIT scientists crack the case of breaking spaghetti in two: Controlling fracture cascades through twisting and quenching (PNAS; public abstract only).
posted by filthy light thief (30 comments total)

I guess there's a scientific reason my mother taught me to break noodles by holding them with my hands next to one another towards the middle! (then again, noodle detritus isn't the worst thing in the world)
posted by batter_my_heart at 12:52 AM on August 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I can't understand why anyone would want to break spaghetti in the first place.
posted by james33 at 4:17 AM on August 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

I can't understand why anyone would want to break spaghetti

When I was a kid, I fed an entire box of dry spaghetti through a huge metal-bladed fan I set up in the kitchen. It was the most hilarious thing ever, right up until my mom walked in.
posted by ryanrs at 4:25 AM on August 21, 2018 [31 favorites]

Don't break spaghetti. It's rude.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:47 AM on August 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

It breaks the spirit of the noodle.
posted by fairmettle at 5:23 AM on August 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

It's macarongy. Especially when the sauce isn't thick enough (which is macaroneous) and the short pieces won't wind tightly on the fork.

When I was a kid, I fed an entire box of dry spaghetti through a huge metal-bladed fan

Did you get up close and sing into the fan? Because that's also cool (unless you get your hair caught and the fan eats your head).
posted by pracowity at 5:39 AM on August 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

Adiabatic quenching?
posted by lokta at 5:57 AM on August 21, 2018

(I'm very new to materials science)
posted by lokta at 5:58 AM on August 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Spaghetti breaker here. (I break it so I don't have to slowly push the stuff into the pan)
I certainly have noticed extra pieces flying around when I do that, but I did not realize it does it every time.
Guess I'm not Nobel Prize material.
posted by MtDewd at 7:32 AM on August 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Incidentally, Noodle Detritus is the name of my new psychedelic jam band.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:59 AM on August 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

AFAI recall this does not happen when I break spaghetti,, but maybe its because I don't break them one at at time; I snap the whole bunch at once.
posted by TDIpod at 8:01 AM on August 21, 2018

Our first hit single is "Twist and Quench".
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:02 AM on August 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

You have to break spaghetti if you're cooking it in a pot of a smaller diameter than the length of the noodle. It's so you can get full immersion of your noodles into the boiling water, to ensure they're all evenly cooked.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:07 AM on August 21, 2018

I'd love to see a live demonstration of this One Cool Trick, but so far I haven't had any luck. Does anyone know where to find one?
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:28 AM on August 21, 2018

You have to break spaghetti if you're cooking it in a pot of a smaller diameter than the length of the noodle.

Hmm. I boil the water, jam a fistful of spaghetti in as far as it will go, and then maintain pressure on it like I'm feeding a man's leg into a wood chipper. The spaghetti bends. And when there's not enough spaghetti above the water to grasp, I stir it in with a wooden spoon.
posted by pracowity at 8:50 AM on August 21, 2018 [17 favorites]

I'd love to see a live demonstration of this One Cool Trick, but so far I haven't had any luck. Does anyone know where to find one?

the MIT presser has an embedded GIF of a slow-motion snap and the same thing in a model, but it doesn't show the mechanical fracture device that was custom-built to controllably twist and bend sticks of spaghetti, so I don't know how much to twist a piece of spaghetti if I want a clean two-piece break.

Of course, I don't really want to do that, when I could slowly submerge a handful of dry noodles into a pot of hot water, slowly bending them around the interior of the pot as they become pliable, to ensure unbroken noodles.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:12 AM on August 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hmm. I boil the water, jam a fistful of spaghetti in as far as it will go, and then maintain pressure on it like I'm feeding a man's leg into a wood chipper.

You do you, I guess. Me, I prefer to just dump in my appropriately-sized dry noodles and spend the next 10 minutes watching TV in the other room while they get al dente-d to perfection.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:32 AM on August 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Either way, breaking them has never been a problem for me because my grandma was an old Sicilian lady who taught my mom who in turn taught me. The Sicilians have been doing the spaghetti twist-break for centuries.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:34 AM on August 21, 2018

Do what my mother did: Don't break spaghetti, cook them in a long shallow pan, aka the fish pan. Totally works, and with much less water.
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 9:51 AM on August 21, 2018

The Sicilians have been doing the spaghetti twist-break for centuries

...while presumably muttering under their breaths, "Phooey to the 'purists'!"
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:33 AM on August 21, 2018

"You do you, I guess. Me, I prefer to just dump in my appropriately-sized dry noodles and spend the next 10 minutes watching TV in the other room while they get al dente-d to perfection."

I do the same thing but also forget I was boiling noodles so some of them are burnt and stuck to the bottom.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:44 AM on August 21, 2018

That's why you add a little salt to the water, it not only makes it boil a little faster, but it also keeps the pasta from sticking.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:14 AM on August 21, 2018

The main reason to salt pasta water is for flavor. You'd have to add way too much salt to affect the boiling point very much.
posted by theory at 11:22 AM on August 21, 2018

Nope, it's not a question of the boiling point; on a chemical level salt actually raises the boiling point of water. But more crucially, adding any kind of solute to ordinary water will lower its heat capacity, thus allowing the liquid to boil faster with the same application of heat. We use salt because it's water soluble and compatible with pasta's flavor profile.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:48 AM on August 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Breaking spaghetti is one of those things my mom did, and I absolutely won’t do as an adult. I like twirling my pasta around my fork.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 11:51 AM on August 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

they sell short spaghetti for people with small pots, now
posted by thelonius at 12:14 PM on August 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

"short spaghetti for small pots" is my new metafilter username
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:16 PM on August 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

here it is
posted by thelonius at 12:29 PM on August 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oh man, I thought you were joking.
I'm gonna buy some.
posted by MtDewd at 11:23 AM on August 22, 2018

I'm going to buy long spaghetti, break it, and resell it as "traditionally broken" spaghetti.
posted by pracowity at 10:53 PM on August 23, 2018 [2 favorites]