[PW] Marco Polo and pasta

[swguardian-wombat at yahoo.com]

Hard to say if he was joking or not, but the amount of people who fall for 
hoaxes is incredible. Just look at all those email hoaxes people keep sending their friends because they, "want to help." Most times though, when they find out it really was false, they will not admit to having fallen for it in the first place. The "spaghetti tree" business had been around some time before this version came up. I have seen it mentioned in newspapers as early as 1914 in the US. People may have thought it old hat by then. 

You might find the "Museum of Hoaxes" rather interesting. Check out the 1835 New York Sun's "Great Moon Hoax" at their Hoaxipedia tab while you are there.   
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/

SYLVIA MILNE <sylviamilne at btopenworld.com> wrote: Quite honestly that man must have been blind or deaf and must never have seen a newspaper. I remember that hoax and everyone was talking and laughing about it the next day. All the newspapers carried the story with extra suggestions, like the special flower that yielded tomato sauce. As for pear trees, England is full of them. I have one in my garden. I suspect that your mate was indulging in what we call "Urine extraction" or "Extracting the Michael" ;-)

Sylvia Milne

Please visit me at http://www.sylviamilne.co.uk/ 

-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org
[mailto:project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On Behalf Of T. F.
Mills
Sent: 21 July 2008 19:02
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: Re: [PW] Marco Polo and pasta

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
<snip>