[PW] Marco Polo and pasta

[T. F. Mills]

The 1957 BBC hoax came up on Stumpers twelve years or so ago when I mentioned 
spaghetti trees in passing.  I had in 40 some years never heard of the BBC hoax, but shortly 
after it aired I was entertaining an English friend in Switzerland (where the spaghetti harvest 
hoax was set), and he wanted to see spaghetti trees.  Well this fellow had never seen a pear 
either, so I pulled his leg and showed him some trees already "harvested."   The hoax 
apparently seared the imagination of millions of Brits, who to this day may still believe it.

Rather tellingly, "cameraman Charles de Jaeger dreamed up the report after remembering 
how teachers at his school in Austria used to tease his classmates for being so stupid that 
they would believe it if they were told spaghetti grew on trees."  (according to Wikipedia).

There used to be an Italian restaurant in Sydney, Australia, that commemorated this BBC 
hoax with sepia stills from the "documentary" as murals.


T(rees) F(ettucini) Mills