After retiring from the Navy, my brother settled in Norfolk (naturally for a sailor I imagine). He'd comment how the natives would cook the heck out of their pasta (no "al Dente" over there!). I remember having spaghetti dinner with him at a Norfolk restaurant, and noticing that the pasta was VERY soft and mushy. My brother joked that one time, he cooked a plate of spaghetti for his local friends more like the way we'd have it growing up in New York (much firmer). His friends commented that while the dish was good, the pasta was "RAW!".
My wife did the same when we were first married 43 years ago.
To her, spaghettis was supposed to be swollen fat and mushy.
She likes it al dente now!......................
by having the pasta al dente whatever warm sauce it is placed in is further absorbed into the outer wall of the pasta — or so I was taught as a Mess Sgt.
My favorite dinner on my birthday in my youth was Spaghetti and Meatballs which my mother made very well. In recent years, trying to put back on weight, I have become a real pasta fan. I can make a lot of different pasta dishes although I don’t normally make fresh pasta itself.
I recommend that people look around for artichoke bottoms, which if canned tender are wonderful sliced up in pasta dishes.
I like to also make some pretty plain pastas. Try browning a bunch of diced up garlic in butter and olive oil, then adding that with a little lemon juice to cooked pasta. Then cover with fresh chopped basil and high quality parmesan cheese fairly dry and finely shredded
The only thing I can’t make like Jenni’s Restaurant in Columbus Park is Linguini Carbonara. I am going to have to take a whole weekend sometime and just make repeated batches until I get it just right — but I don’t have the patience right now..
I was in mgmt of a low-grade Italian restaurant that was mostly pizza, and the spaghetti was pre-cooked, put into baggies for refrigeration storage, and dropped into boiling water for reheating before serving.