October 25th is World Pasta Day: Celebrate Responsibly

Patent and the Pantry/Flickr

On October 25th, kids will still go to school.  Mail will arrive as it normally does.  Stores will remain open.  Although the state gives it little respect, World Pasta Day is coming on Monday, and people all over the world will celebrate--perhaps, we might suggest, by gathering at town centers to re-enact, with strangers, the spaghetti scene from Lady and The Tramp.  The idea of pouring one out for pasta sounds absurd, but the Union of Organizations of Manufacturers of Pasta Products of the E.U. is not messing around. Check it:

"At world level the collective promotion in favour of pasta received a powerful impulsion thanks to the outcome of the World Pasta Congress held in Rome on 25th October 1995.  Delegations from various countries discussed together the theme of the collective promotion in favour of pasta consumption, exchanging their ideas and experiences.  Account was taken and stress was laid on the importance of spreading to the utmost the knowledge of pasta among consumers throughout the world by means of collective initiatives of promotional nature and institutional information campaigns.  The countries with greatest experience in this field made available their know-how for the benefit of those countries which have only recently come to realise the virtues and merits of pasta. The ambitious project of organising on a world-wide basis World Pasta Day on 25th October of each year, for the purpose of recalling and enhancing the first event that saw the gathering of the international pasta community was successfully carried through..."

We like to hoover a bowl of guanciale-spiked bucatini all'amatriciana as much as anyone, but this doesn't sound like a weak "foodie" thing, nor does it resemble a low-grade pseudo-holiday Hallmark wouldn't bother making a card for.  Unless it's all a cruel joke, Pasta Day sounds like a movement.  Assuming the revolution is coming, sauce and all, we suggest joining up at Angelini Osteria.

And if paying for transcendent tagliolini isn't your bag, show a meek solidarity by scarfing a heap of free, extremely earthly spag at Buca di Beppo in Pasadena. That's right, on World Pasta Day only, the chain will be doling out free servings of spaghetti with marinara or meat sauce to guests willing to purchase a small or large pasta or entrée first. Please, though--for the love of semolina--don't get your tagliatelle in a tangle speeding over there. For better or for potentially much, much worse, last year, the restaurant reportedly gave away 11 tons of pasta.