Is it true that Americans eat pasta and ketchup?

44 comments

1. never heard of this

2. No

3. I’ve never seen someone do this

4. Well there are a few newly made Americans who immigrated from Germany, so yes, some do

5. I have never heard of a single person doing this, and if they do they’re already in a psych ward

6. I’ve seen Brits, Scandinavians, and Japanese do this (though I don’t think a particularly common practice by any of them), but never an American. Googling shows that it’s apparently considered normal by Swedes. I’m sure someone out there in our neck of the woods does it but it’s not really a “thing” in the US.

   Europeans tend to make up a lot of generalizations about Americans based on small sample sizes. Fodder for small talk over there, seems like.

   At best this is something I might eat back when I was poor during college and getting by on minimum wage and couldn’t afford food, like eating a plain bagel with Taco Bell hot sauce. Disgusting, cheap, and gets the job done.

7. No. The only dish I know of that’s like this is the naporitan, and that’s Japanese.

8. Together? No

9. I’ve seen examples of Asians and Euros doing this, never an American. But we’re a big country with people from everywhere.

   It would be far more common to dump a jar of $3 Ragu on overcooked pasta, which is equally offensive to Italians.

10. I’ve never heard of or seen anyone doing that.

11. I’m sure someone does, but I’ve never seen it

    Reddit will believe anything about America as long as it’s bad

12. I never have, nor have I ever seen someone eat this combination. It sounds revolting. However, we’re a nation of a third of a billion people. I’m sure that someone, somewhere in the USA and/or its territories has eaten this.

    And yes, we’re aware of our reputation in Europe. Much of it is based on made-up or heavily exaggerated things like this.

13. No

14. We don’t think about you at all dot gif

15. No that’s gross

16. Jollibee’s has spaghetti with banana ketchup, but that is a Filipino company that is just starting to make inroads into the US, so I’d blame the Filipinos for that one

17. >*you guys have a bad reputation over here in Europe*

    Ya don’t say 🙄

    Why do Europeans insist on being so rude to Americans?

18. I have never seen anyone do this. Sounds like a poverty meal for someone just trying to make it to payday.

19. No

    “You guys have a bad reputation over here in Europe.”

    We know

20. No, that sounds gross. Never seen anyone do it

21. I have never heard of anyone using ketchup with pasta.

    I have seen it with eggs and occasionally with steak, which kind of disgusts me, but to each his own.

22. Maybe in the Great Depression era? I know my grandfather ate ketchup sandwiches back then.

23. Not me.

24. I only did it in the UK, but never in America, I’ve never seen or heard anyone do it in Amerca

25. No. No, man. Sh*t, no, man. I believe you’d get your ass kicked sayin’ something like that, man.

26. Been studying italian for 5 years and in my interactions with Italians ive heard this question so much that it always puzzles me about what people think about Americans. I dont know if its them being gullible, having no media literacy at all, or some other reason, but it always always puzzles me

27. I mean I don’t know anyone who does this.

28. No. Not at all. Another example how Euros will believe absolutely anything without doing a second of research.

29. As a joke in movies maybe, but irl, we can just buy a jar of pasta sauce.

30. How do things like this start I wonder. The answer is always yes someone will do anything, but how does a very small sample of people get put on 330 million people. Anyway you might want to take your question to the Japanese and Filipino sub

31. No.

    We don’t do that. We have plenty of actual proper pasta sauces.

    I’ve never, in my entire life, seen anyone actually eat pasta with ketchup, and I’d expect someone to be laughed at if they did such a thing in the US.

    . . .and we know that there’s a lot of silly misinformation spread about us in Europe.

32. Is it true that Europeans believe everything they hear?

33. I have never heard of anybody using ketchup on pasta

34. Seriously? Come on, OP.

    No. As a general rule No we do not.

    Having a bad reputation over in Europe is nothing new and the offenses run the gamut. Been hearing it for decades.

35. >If it’s not true…you guys have a bad reputation here in Europe

    If Reddit taught be anything is that Europeans are the most gullible fuckers on the in the galaxy as long as it involves America bad

36. Sounds like somebody is deriding our pasta sauce as ketchup and someone else took it literally.

    Or to put it another way: have you seen the movie *Goodfellas*? It ends with a mobster from New York bemoaning his new new life in witness protection. He says

    >Right after I got here I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and ketchup.

    He’s not saying they literally gave him ketchup on his pasta. He’s saying the marinara sauce was of such low quality it might as well have been ketchup.

37. God, no. That’s a thing I’ve heard they do East Asia, Eastern Europe, Sweden and the UK, but how that became associated with the US I’ll never know.

38. No, though we prefer red sauces so I could see how they could have that impression.

    Also, most Americans don’t drink Americanos.

39. Pretty big talk coming from a continent that had to steal tomatoes from the Americas in the first place

40. [Jeez, you let Ray Liotta do one goddamn voiceover, and people think it’s the literal truth.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1PMraLG8Dw#t=7m56s)

41. We only put ketchup on high class food, [such as escargot](https://youtu.be/nX90EOrVEQI?si=ADAWhzsL_kob4ZJd).

42. > Is it true that Americans eat pasta and ketchup?

    No

    > If it’s not true….you guys have a bad reputation over here in Europe

    There you have it, rumor mills and gossip circles have always been and will always be the primary sources of information on Americans and the US for most Europeans. Are you lot genuinely not embarrassed by this?

43. No. You guys just love to tell each other outlandish shit in your daily “America Lives Rent Free In Your Heads” sessions.

44. I think that’s a filipino thing, not american.