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I have two brands of spaghetti, and I'm wondering if anyone can shed insight into which one of them has better quality.

I have been cooking a certain brand X of spaghetti for some time. When cooking, the noodles sort of float and play around near the top of the pot, making it easier for me to grab a piece and test for firmness. The resulting pasta water is pale or off-white.

On the other hand, another brand Z of spaghetti seems to be denser and sticks to the bottom during cooking. At the start, upon dumping into boiling water, the pasta softens/flexes much sooner than brand X. Finally, the resulting pasta water is more yellow in color. Because brand Z spaghetti sinks at the bottom of the deep pot, it has to be stirred constantly, to avoid overcooking and fusing of noodle strands.

As cooked, the Brand X spaghetti is thicker than Brand Z - both cooked to my own standard of al dente, around 9 minutes.

Without knowing the price of the two brands, would anyone be able to tell any tell-tale factors of quality for store bought spaghetti noodles?

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  • 1
    Do they have the same ingredients listed on the packaging?
    – Stephie ♦
    Commented Sep 22, 2017 at 17:09
  • Are you sure brand X is actually real pasta? Spaghetti shouldn't float.
    – GdD
    Commented Sep 22, 2017 at 17:20
  • 1
    By what criteria do you measure quality?
    – rumtscho ♦
    Commented Sep 22, 2017 at 18:27
  • 2
    Which one do you enjoy more? Go with that one.
    – mrog
    Commented Sep 25, 2017 at 19:13
  • 3
    @mrog seems to have the only real criteria for that assessment. If Anthony Bourdain tells me Chicago style pizza is horrible, in his expert assessment, and it's my favorite kind, then that makes it the best, not horrible. For food I eat, my own opinion counts the more than any general consensus in the eating world.
    – PoloHoleSet
    Commented Sep 26, 2017 at 14:28

1 Answer 1

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Are these fresh pastas or dried? That might explain the differences in cooking "behaviors"- however, I agree completely with mrog- I would just go with which ever one you like more.

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    Hello and welcome! I don't see how your post answers the question. We are a strict Q & A site, not a discussion forum. As a new user, we invite you to visit our Tour and Help pages. Both can be found under the 'help' dropdown at the top of the page.
    – Cindy
    Commented Sep 26, 2017 at 13:10
  • My apologies, please delete the answer if necessary. I will pay more attention to answering the question directly in the future, thank you.
    – Navajo Dreamchild
    Commented Sep 26, 2017 at 13:15
  • 2
    No apologies necessary. We welcome new users, especially those who are eager to help others. We also realize that we are a bit different than other sites, and that creates a bit of a learning curve. Our goal is to provide good quality answers that can be easily found. So again, welcome! We look forward to seeing more from you!
    – Cindy
    Commented Sep 26, 2017 at 13:19
  • Hi @NavajoDreamchild. These are the dry, factory kind.
    – wearashirt
    Commented Sep 27, 2017 at 8:53

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