Is garlic bread or any bread a necessity for pasta dishes?

by Putrid-K

26 Comments

  1. No. I just don’t get it. Carbs with carbs? The only thing I sometimes use bread for is to scoop up some of the ragù remaining on the dish. Otherwise no.

  2. 1337-Sylens

    I never eat bread with pasta except small piece for scarpetta. Usually, i clean my plate well enough I don’t need to.

  3. I personally love bread. So I am biased. But I also love a simple green salad.
    Much easier to sop up the sauce with crusts of bread than salad tho.

  4. T20sGrunt

    Not required, but mopping up the sauce with a piece of bread is a treat.

    Not sure why people would be against this. It’s very delicious. Unless you’re Italian, then you probably hate everything that isn’t Italian and can’t wait to try and judge people on why they like delicious things. 🤌🏼🤌🏼

  5. Scared-Comparison870

    I think garlic bread is overkill, but I also eat a lot of sourdough and I’ll rip a chunk off to sop up sauce. I don’t think it belongs, but I wouldn’t be mad about it.

  6. LazarusHimself

    I always eat my pasta with a bit of bread, rice, corn and potato mash

  7. Simmyphila

    In my opinion, yes. But if I forget garlic bread, I will just use plain white bread.

  8. timwaaagh

    It can be nice sure. If I wasn’t sure whether my girlfriend was going to like something then I’d put a baguette and butter next to it.

    But no.

  9. ranting_chef

    It’s an inexpensive side dish that is relatively easy to execute, especially in restaurants. Necessary? Probably not but most people – especially Americans – seem to think it’s a vital part of the meal.

    As an American – one who makes pasta and bread in a professional setting – many people will tell you that it’s absolutely necessary so you can scrape all of the sauce up. But as an American who studied in Italy, I can tell you that if you make the pasta properly, you don’t need the bread because there isn’t sauce on the plate when you’re finished. And many shapes of pasta go better with certain types of sauces – they’re not always interchangeable.

    Here in the United States, I feel like most restaurants use way too much sauce, and usually don’t incorporate it correctly into the pasta in the first place. Many places just put a pile of sticky pasta in a bowl and ladle sauce over the top.

    So yes…….yet another healthy eating habit probably invented in the US. Maybe someone should come out with a MPGA hate and try to make pasta great again (without the frozen breadsticks).

  10. drew_galbraith

    I only ever rock bread and pasta if I’m at an Italian American place, usually their pasta is sauced a bit heavier so you can wipe up the extra from your bowl with you garlic toast at the end. But at home or at an Italian spot, not usually for me.

  11. SabreLee61

    I don’t have bread while I’m eating pasta.

    Neither do I fly into a rage if someone does.

  12. Capitan-Fracassa

    It is a cultural and technical thing. My take is that bread should be on the table as soon as you start eating, and that includes pasta. I remember my grandpa would not start eating his pasta until he saw bread on the table. Other fundamental rule I have is that the bread should not be sitting on the plate with the pasta, but it is tolerable to eat morsels while you eat the pasta. You MUST then grab the bread to clean all the sauce left in the plate once the pasta is finished. Garlic bread in my opinion is not a necessity and it kills the flavor of the sauce, just serve plain bread.

  13. ersentenza

    Bread has no business to be in a pasta dish unless it is a soup.

    Why the hell do Americans do that?

  14. Zanshin_18

    Never made sense to me, have some carbs with your carbs.

  15. Upbeat-Stay-3490

    No, not at all.

    My 70 year old father believes that every meal needs bread with it for some reason though. You could serve him the best, most thoughtfully prepared meal ever, and he’d be asking where the shitty piece of white bread with margarine is.

  16. CupcakesAreMiniCakes

    I add bread especially last minute garlic bread when I need to stretch a meal like when my brother in law used to show up around dinner without warning and I was already making a pasta dinner. Then though it’s just smaller portions of more different foods like usually pasta, salad, bread, whatever protein

  17. Aeolus_14_Umbra

    My wife and I are garlic bread fanatics so yes, we eat it with pasta. But we tend eat smaller portions of pasta than most people (about 1-1/2 oz. each) and typically save the garlic bread for “dessert” to nibble on with a good Tuscan red.

    Most often though we’ll serve garlic bread with meatballs in marinara sauce, a light salad and red wine.

  18. TraditionalQuality66

    No, but if I’m at an Italian restaurant and I’m ordering a pasta as a main, I really enjoy fresh Bruschetta topped with goat cheese and a balsamic glaze drizzle. Regular-schmegular garlic bread isn’t as enticing.

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