I have no idea who was the first person to think of bringing a bowl of spaghetti to the beach to share with a seagull but my money’s on Jackson Pollock who happened to love spaghetti after having it for the first time at 18.
Seagulls get a bad rap as they are seen more as scavengers than food aficionados. Are they discerning? Would they know the difference between Tutto il Giorno’s Spaghetti with Scarpariello sauce, Corbara cherry tomatoes, Pecorino and Parmiagano and Chef Boyardee’s Spaghetti and Meatballs? Absolutely. Maybe. Who the hell knows.
But how fun would it be to watch a seagull eat a bowl of spaghetti and kudos to that one innovative gull who decides to curve his left wing into a makeshift spoon right in front of you enabling the signature spaghetti twirl culminating in the perfect bite.
At any cocktail party on any given day, you will find the origination of spaghetti being debated. Was it the Greeks who invented it in ancient Rome and then somehow the Arabs got involved and brought it to Sicily? Or was it Marco Polo who brought it to Italy from China? The debate could rage on for hours but in the end the Italians always win because even if they didn’t invent spaghetti, they certainly perfected it. Just ask any seagull.
Now many beachgoers are not fans of seagulls as they seem incapable of respecting boundaries, the gulls not the beachgoers – or is it the beachgoers not the gulls, anyway even if not a fan, you must admit that gulls do possess a certain majesty as they float in the sky catching endless drafts much like what was described repeatedly in the book titled Jonathan Livingston Seagull. A book that oddly never mentioned spaghetti.
Wouldn’t it be something if every time you went to the beach you saw seagulls eating spaghetti? Man and bird sharing a love of pasta. Of course, there is then the risk that the gulls will start packing on the pounds from all the carbs and find that they are no longer capable of flying their standard 100 miles a day or even walking as those thin, sticklike legs cannot withstand the new rotund torsos and soon all the beaches in the Hamptons would be littered with supine seagulls.
And then what? No doubt, someone will have to come in and get those corpulent seagulls moving. The obvious choice is a highly-paid personal trainer. Maybe Seinfeld will share his. If not Jerry, maybe J-Lo or Madonna. Spielberg has a pet parrot. He must like birds. Maybe he’d be willing to set up a GullFundMe page to whip those pasta-loving seagulls back into shape.
But wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Even if there is a risk of an “sg” obesity outbreak that is no reason to deny a seagull its one great love. So next time you go to the beach throw caution to the wind and ignore the thought of being attacked – think Hitchcock – by an onslaught of hungry birds as you serve up a giant bowl of spaghetti. But just make sure you don’t overcook the pasta as I have heard from several extremely reliable sources if not ten then possibly one that seagulls can get pretty damn pissed if their spaghetti is not served up al dente.
