At the end of Goodfellas, a witness-protected Henry Hill — after everything he’s done in the course of the movie — laments being served “egg noodles with ketchup” instead of proper pasta.
As it turns out, a survey of Italians — folks who know a little something about food — take such slights pretty seriously.
The poll logged the biggest “food crimes” committed against traditional Italian food, and “putting ketchup on spaghetti” ranked as the most egregious, with 64.6% of the 1,400 locals surveyed by the website BonusfinderItalia flagging that.
More than 62% said putting pineapple on pizza ranked as the second-most decried food crime, and 56.9% said putting pasta in cold water and then boiling it — as opposed to putting it into already boiling water — ranked third.
More than 55% say cutting your spaghetti or linguine with a knife is a no-no, and rounding out the top five food crimes in the eyes of Italians: not sharing your food.
Other irksome Americanizations of traditional Italian food were more specific, like “adding cream to carbonara” and “asking for cheese on a meal containing seafood” — which, believe it or not, was more bothersome to locals than cutting pizza with a knife and fork.
Survey questions, methodology and results have not been verified or endorsed by ABC News or The Walt Disney Company.