"Sam" > wrote in message
om...
> hi there,
>
> we ate yesterday at an 'italian' resturant ordering spaghetti
> bolognese.
>
> the plate was of macaroni spirals mixed about in bolognese sauce.
>
> it did not resemble my preconceptional idea that spaghetti bolognese
> is a dish of cooked spaghetti or other long thin pasta with bologese
> sauce neatly poured on the top.
>
> the waiter and the owners said that macaroni is the same as spagetti.
> as i am not italian i felt i wasnt in a position to argue with people
> who have been eating these dishes since their childhood.
>
> Maybe some here could enlighten me, can you use macaroni spirals and
> still call it spaghetti bologese? would you serve it that way in your
> resturant?

What do you mean with maccaroni spirals?
Fusilli?

Almost any shape of pasta can be topped with ragù (bolognese sauce).
Ragù (pronouced ragoo, for the few...) is one of the few sauces that can be
"topped" on the pasta (with plenty of parmesan, slurp!) and not sauted with
it.
If you will have the luck to be in Bologna once to gain 5-6 lbs per day, you
will find that there are jus "tagliatelle alla bolognese".
Just tagliatelle: fresh pasta. Other shapes are very common in different
region because of the relative lack of daily fresh tagliatelle.
Now we have semi-industrial fresh tagliatelle in markets every day. So we do
prefer tagliatelle.
But remeber thin my granmom rule: "the thicker the sauce, the bigger the
pasta".

Luca (ITA)