Pasta La Vista, Baby

Olive oil contains mostly unsaturated fats. Fats are triglycerides, which are made up of a combination of fatty acids and glycerol. As a whole, they are hydrophobic, explaining why olive oil and vinegar do not mix very well. There are three different types of fats, saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated; liquid fats contain a lot of unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats contain one or more double bonds, making the shape harder to stack and therefore creating less VDW attractions. Olive oil is a liquid fat for this reason. Unsaturated fats can further be separated into cis- and trans-, where the Hydrogens caught up in the double bond to Carbon are on the same side or different sides of the fat, respectively. Olive oil is mostly cis-monounsaturated fats, meaning the fats only contain one Carbon-Carbon double bond, so the fat has a kink in it, making it harder for it to stack on top of each other.

4. Cultural Analysis
The location of where this dish originated is a bit unclear. Some suggest that it is a Neapolitan dish, while others agree that it came from a region called Abruzzo, on the Eastern coast of Italy. The spaghetti aglio e olio recipe first appeared in a cookbook titled “Cucino Teorico Pratica” by Guido Cavalcanti in 1837, under the name “Uermiculi Aglio e uoglie”. This early version used vermicelli, a much thicker pasta, and it wasn’t until 1965 a Neapolitan chef suggested the use of linguine. It is suspected that this is the poorer version of the classic Southern Italian dish spaghetti alle vongole, or spaghetti with clams. The key difference is the inclusion of clams. Since poorer families could not access the seafood, they simply recreated the dish without them, and today, the dish is possibly more iconic Italian than its predecessor. It is simple, convenient, and most importantly, it tastes good. Spaghetti aglio e olio is often regarded as a classic Italian dish, and associated with cucina rustica, or rural home-style cooking.