Gold Dress

 

In 1957, the BBC current affairs show Panorama aired a segment about the spaghetti harvest in Ticino, Switzerland. The clip showed a rustic Swiss family bringing in a bumper crop of noodles from their spaghetti trees. They attributed their bountiful harvest to a mild winter and an absence of spaghetti weevils. Included was some footage of the annual Spaghetti Festival and a discussion of efforts to develop a longer strain of spaghetti. The segment aired with tongue firmly pressed in cheek, on the first of April. The station was flooded with calls from viewers, asking how they could acquire and cultivate their own spaghetti trees. I suspect this isn’t just a case of gullibility. It might also be because very few Brits (or Americans, for that matter) back then even ate pasta. In fact, many of my acquaintances (here or there) who were adults in the 50’s still don’t consider noodles an actual food.