The proliferation of novel pasta embodiments and proportions may well discountenance even the connoisseur of cutlery when prevailed upon to select the most felicitous implement to effect the pasta's journey from plate to buccal cavity. Pasta configurations too large for a spoon, yet too small for the tines of a fork to penetrate without the risk of bespattering one's table companion, present the conscientious diner with challenges undreamt of by the pastaphage of simpler and more innocent times. Although we are forward-looking and utopian in our aspirations for a world made better by a principled refusal to embrace stasis, we find in our rich heritage a limited set of verities from which no future generation should be called upon to deviate, chief among them being the fork, the spoon, and the knife, and we reject any and all neoteric comestibles that cannot be conveniently dispatched by recourse to this tested trinity.