Uncooked hard pasta keeps well. It is firm enough to make into shapes, even complicated shapes. Raw pasta is crunchy and tasty.
I propose that spoons and forks could be made from pasta. They would probably last long enough for a meal before sogging out, which is the length of use of most disposable flatware. Then you could eat them. Or just eat them.-- bungston, Aug 22 2011 Edible_20Cutlery [hippo, Aug 23 2011] You could eat them with these... Silverwear [normzone, Aug 23 2011] Using the term 'shag' to mean 'collecting balls' http://www.urbandic...hp?term=Shag&page=3Obviously, it's not the most common usage, but it's legitimate [Alterother, Aug 23 2011] What an amazingly good idea. [+]-- 8th of 7, Aug 22 2011 Wowwww. This is the best idea I have read all day, and that includes my own and a very strange book about the interplay of quantum physics and voles.
I would love to eat a meal of cooked pasta cutlery, with pasta cutlery.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 22 2011 Yes, the irony would be delicious.-- 8th of 7, Aug 22 2011 This idea could only have been inspired by the touch of his noodly appendage.
We are not yet worthy.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 23 2011 Brilliant. [+]-- Grogster, Aug 23 2011 //I would love to eat a meal of cooked pasta cutlery, with pasta cutlery//I would love to eat a meal of cooked pasta cutlery, with spaghetti chopsticks-- hippo, Aug 23 2011 That first fishbone isn't mine, but the second one is. Hard pasta, as you misguided people have allowed yourself to perceive it, has two states: hard (and putatively (though actually not) tasty) and cooked. This Manichean pasta assessment neglects entirely the transitional state between the two. The transitional state is, in fact, a continuum of disgusitingness, with utterly disgusting and one end and, almost uniquely for continua, utterly disgusting at the other. Starting at the uncooked end and progressing towards cookèdness, it runs as follows: hard, brittle, disgusting; covered in starchy slime sheen, disgusting; yeilding to teeth through starch slime for depth of <1mm, brittle beneath, disgusting brittle texture now depleted to texture of gallstones, disgusting al dente, starch slime dissipated in water, delicious; soggly, recloaked in starch slime; overcooked, texture now suggestive of being half-digested by a vomiting dog, disgusting; starch paste, disgusting.
In short, this idea is disgusting.-- calum, Aug 23 2011 Full disclosure: (a) I love bungston too much to fishbone an idea of his; (b) soggly was a typo but I like it so I have left it.-- calum, Aug 23 2011 I only managed to get in as the 3rd or 4th bun, but I would find it impossible to bone this.
[calum] of all the states you mentioned (and thankyou sooo much for describing the chewy texture of a gallstone); none of them impinge on the act of eating unless you commonly try to chew on your cutlery.
Obviously once the pasta starts to lose its cutlery status, it gets tossed into the plate gravy, perhaps its own side-cup of sauce, where it turns into the next course while a new utensil is chosen to continue eating.-- FlyingToaster, Aug 23 2011 I would say that unless ye typically use cutlery as some part of a trebuchet food delivery mechanism, it is difficult to envisage a circumstance where the pasta fork would not come into contact with some part of the mouth. Perhaps I have bizarrely sensitive mouth parts, but even the thought of a barely starch-slimed pasta form touching my tongue or lips gives me the boke.-- calum, Aug 23 2011 //unless ye typically use cutlery as some part of a trebuchet food delivery mechanism// and who doesn't ?
I don't see any problems with this barring things like chocolate cake or tea/coffee and even then I doubt the starch would be noticeable (except for the tea perhaps).-- FlyingToaster, Aug 23 2011 Are gallstones really slightly soft or yeilding to the touch? I had always assumed they were, well, stony.-- hippo, Aug 23 2011 Having done further googling, I think you are correct, hippo. Bugger.-- calum, Aug 23 2011 Although I am at home sick today and cannot eat a single thing...I can't wait to get better to use some of this fine halfbaked (uncooked) cutlery! +-- xandram, Aug 23 2011 You may not be able to eat but you can always (half)bake.-- normzone, Aug 23 2011 // I had always assumed they were, well, stony. //
All urinary tract deposits/obstructions are. Included in my dad's large collection of remarkable items removed from animals over the course of his 33 years as a veterinarian are a couple of jars full of urinary stones, ranging in size from a grain of rice to a child's fist. After washing with dish soap, they have almost no odor and have the texture of fine sandstone.
<Warning: ISYN story imminent -- take all necessary precautions -- stay tuned to this frequency for further updates>
He also has a 1.5-gallon pickle jar filled to the top with golf balls in various states of decomposition. They were removed from a 6yo Labrador Retriever that lived adjacent a golf course. Unbeknownst to his owners the dog had been shagging lost balls for most of his life; one evening, he stopped eating his dinner, laid down, and wouldn't get up, so they brought him to see my dad. Within a few days, the dog was eating like a pig and happily playing in his newly- fenced back yard.-- Alterother, Aug 23 2011 //the dog had been shagging lost balls for most of his life//
This does not (unless my understanding of canine reproduction is woefully misadequate) explain how the golf balls wound up inside the dog.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 23 2011 Sorry, I made a rather humorous oversight there; 'shagging' is also an American term for collecting stray or errant balls, most widely used in golf and baseball. In this case, the dog had been collecting and consuming them, which is a variation on the standard technique.-- Alterother, Aug 23 2011 // 'shagging' is also an American term for collecting stray or errant balls//
Two nations divided by a common language.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 23 2011 Indeed.
"This country spawned the fuckin' language, how come nobody here seems to speak it?!"
- Cousin Avi, 'Snatch'-- Alterother, Aug 23 2011 <linky>
I thought somebody might question that anecdote, but I certainly didn't foresee skepticism over that particular detail...-- Alterother, Aug 23 2011 //the dog had been shagging lost balls for most of his life// I always thought that lost balls meant an end to any shagging.-- xenzag, Aug 23 2011 +ed after being asked by a friend for an example of a good idea I'd seen recently on the hb.-- csea, Aug 24 2011 Asking [Alterother] if he wilfully admits to shagging flies when he was a boy?-- AusCan531, Aug 24 2011 The topography of the pasta spoon is interesting to ponder /I-beams or triangular tubes or cylindrical tubes/[bigsleep]
I think the interface between blade and handle would be the main difficulty. Some disposable cutlery already has various ridges etc intended to reinforce this area.
I very much like [calum]'s pasta's Hero's Journey, and found in my palate of palates some love for each life step of the intrepid and soggly noodle.-- bungston, Aug 24 2011 Its apparently possible to injection-mould pasta. There are extant patents in the field.-- 8th of 7, Aug 24 2011 I wonder how long it would last when used for eating a bowl of hot soup.-- rcarty, Aug 24 2011 Takes dried pasta about 10 min to cook in boiling water. Knock off 50% because almost-cooked pasta is still too soft to use as a utensil. Knock it back on again because the soup isn't boiling. Add some more time because the spoon's only intermittently immersed. Add still more time because the shape of the spoon, unlike that of normal pasta, has internal structural elements shaped not to be in contact with the hot liquid.
Should give you, say, 15 minutes to eat your soup. If you need half an hour, use two spoons.-- mouseposture, Aug 25 2011 random, halfbakery