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ITALIAN WORD OF THE DAY

Italian word of the day: ‘Spaghettata’

If you like your spaghetti, you'll love the 'spaghettata'.

Italian word of the day spaghettata
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

You may have twirled and chomped your way through enough spaghetti to be ranked up there with the best of them – but if you’ve never lived in Italy, you’ve probably never experienced the spaghettata (pronounced ‘spag-ett-TAH-tah’).

Is it a party? Is it a meal? The best way we can describe it is as a fun, relaxed spaghetti feast eaten at home with friends.

Informal and often impromptu, a spaghettata typically lasts for several hours and involves copious amounts of wine…

Ci ha invitati a casa sua per una spaghettata.
She’s invited us to her place for a spaghettata.

Whereas a traditional Italian meal would have pasta as a first course (primo), followed by a meat or fish secondo, the spaghettata is a meal unto itself.

Pasta is all that’s on the menu, and if you’re coming back for seconds or thirds, pasta is what you’ll get.

party spaghetti GIF by Isola dei Famosi

Because of its humble, cobbled-together nature, a typical spaghettata can be made with the kind of basic ingredients you might find in any Italian kitchen, such as garlic, olive oil and chilli flakes.

If you have Italian friends who are keen to show off their culinary skills, it can be a little more involved and they might want to show off a local or family recipe. In these cases, it can become more like a dinner party – but with multiple helpings of pasta, instead of multiple courses.

You can also expect to see regional or city-based variations on the spaghetti dishes involved. In Bari, for example, you might be invited to someone’s house so they can show off their recipe for spaghetti allassassina: lightly scorched, toasted spaghetti with tomato sauce.

One of the best things about the spaghettata, though, is the lack of rules; the meal’s improvisational origins mean really anything goes, provided you can source it at the last minute or dig it out of your pantry to feed a hungry crowd.

A meal also doesn’t need to be put on at any particular time of day to be a spaghettata: it might be a lunchtime affair, or it might happen on those long, lazy summer evenings and nights – in which case it becomes a spaghettata di mezzanotte (‘midnight spaghettata‘).

Facciamo una bella spaghettata di mezzanotte!
Let’s have a nice late night spaghettata!

While you’d normally have your spaghettata in the company of others, it can occasionally be used to describe a dish you whip up for yourself at the last minute – particularly if you come home after a night out and suddenly realise you’re a bit peckish.

Oddly enough, spaghettata di gelato (‘ice cream spaghettata’) is what Italians call the German dish spaghettieis.

That isn’t a meal consisting entirely of gelato (if only…), but a dessert deliberately designed to look like a plate of pasta, with vanilla ice cream ‘spaghetti’ and red or green ‘sauces’ made of things like berries or pistachio.

You might think that given how alert Italians often are to the desecration of their culinary traditions, this would have sparked some discontent – but the dish appears to be quite popular in Italy, with numerous Italian websites offering recipes for the dessert (often simply known as spaghetti di gelato).

Maybe it’s that no one can resist a little novelty ice cream – or maybe the laid back associations of the spaghettata simply encourage everyone to be a bit more scialla.

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ITALIAN WORD OF THE DAY

Italian expression of the day: ‘Cambiare registro’

Here's the Italian phrase you'll need if you're looking for a change.

Italian expression of the day: ‘Cambiare registro’

If you live in Italy or have spent a considerable amount of time in the country, you may have overheard an Italian parent telling their child they needed to cambiare registro right after they threw a tantrum. 

If you work or have worked in Italy, you may also have had one of your superiors tell you that a cambio di registro was needed in the office. 

But what do Italians really mean when they tell someone they need to ‘change register’?

Italians use cambiare registro to tell someone that they need to change their behaviour, manners or way to approach a particular task (including work or school assignments), usually because they’re not particularly happy with the way they’re currently handling things. 

It is generally used with the verb dovere (must/have to), which must be conjugated according to the person who could do with a ‘change of register’. For instance:

Non hai passato gli ultimi tre test. Devi cambiare registro se vuoi tenere la tua paghetta settimanale.  

You failed the past three exams. You need to turn things around if you want to keep your weekly allowance.

La tua performance al lavoro e’ stata insoddisfacente questo trimestre. Devi veramente cambiare registro il prossimo mese.

Your performance at work has been unsatisfactory this quarter. You really need to turn things around next month.

You could also say that a situation you’re unhappy with needs ‘a change of register’, without addressing anyone in particular. 

Ci sono cose ovunque. C’e’ bisogno di un cambio di registro in questa casa.

There’s stuff all over the place. Changes are needed in this house.

As you can see from these examples, there’s no single way to translate the phrase into English, though ‘turning things around’ and ‘changing up’ are popular translations.

And if you’re wondering where the expression comes from, it has nothing to do with Italy’s Registry Office (or Anagrafe), nor with any other part of the country’s public administration. 

Cambiare registro was originally a music-related expression as it referred to the act of changing the tone or range (registro in Italian) of some musical instruments, including pipe organs.

But, as in the case of many other Italian phrases and expressions, its usage was later extended to daily life situations to express a need for major changes.

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