I blame Sims 4 for crushing my dreams.
Long story short: mushrooms make things brown, the fire trick with the alcohol doesn’t work well when poured onto sauce sitting on top of porous spaghetti, and fuck Roma tomatoes.
Welcome to the Gamer Cooks series on Backseat Gamers! Today I will answer the question of “Can I cook Angry Flaming Spaghetti from The Sims 4 in real life and will it actually make me angry (like it does in the game)?” so that you don’t have to.
Step One: Start with the right ingredients.
Which is to say, no, we aren’t cracking a can of Great Value Spaghetti & Meatballs that has the nutritional value of a chewing gum wrapper.
(For the love of God, at least have the decency to eat a can of green beans with those play-doh noodles and ketchup.)
Sims 4’s Angry Flaming Spaghetti is based on the game’s original Spaghetti recipe made with Tomato, Onion, Mushroom, and Garlic. (Which, in my opinion, is a little more compelling than Sims 3’s version with a singular tomato.)
Here are the ingredients, with me taking some liberties on the amounts and proportion:
Bonus points for spotting me trying to get away with a secret ingredient addition later in the article..
Oh, and you see those tomatoes?
Those are Roma tomatoes. That is, the cheapest shit you can buy in the produce aisle after a head of garlic, and the most disappointing way to enjoy a tomato. Roma tomatoes are the Iceberg lettuce of tomatoes. These you should never, ever use while making foods that depend on tomato’s flavor.
You know what food depends on the tomato’s flavor? Tomato sauce. Needless to say, I made a major mistake, and it came with a hard realization later.
Anyway.
The mix of spices you see in the bowl include pepper, salt, and Italian herbs that are inseparable from the traditional pasta sauce. These are assumed as a part of the §6 cost of the original recipe. Basil costs §1 in the game, cut me some slack here — I like my spices.
Step Two: Fire it up a notch.
Differences of the Flaming version are its slightly higher cost and the prerequisite for your Sim to be angry in order to have the option to make it. Emotional considerations will come into play later, but the way I chose to interpret the higher cost are spicy sauces.
Three of them, to be exact.
Who wouldn’t? It’s an Angry and furthermore Flaming Spaghetti: there are two words that tell anyone who has ever eaten food that the recipe calls for spice.
So, there.
Ah, sorry, my dinner glass of rum and a gas lighter made it into the picture…
And not by accident.
Have I mentioned that I am actually going to set the pasta on fire with rum and a gas lighter to try and replicate the in-game look?
Well, now you know. Argg.
One last thing. Let’s look at our reference image:
Do you see a problem there? Well, aside from the spaghetti looking like a straw pile a horse pissed into.
This spaghetti, considering the intended 1:1 proportion of tomato to a mushroom… is surprisingly red. With no… well… mushrooms being visible.
If you have ever added mushrooms to your soup or sauce, you probably quickly discovered that they make things aggressively brown. Like, sure-keep-adding-tomatoes-to-me-I-am-still-staying-brown brown. This insider information must have been something that did not reach the 3D modeler behind the creation seen in the image above.
Another thing that must have not reached him is a way to make a better spaghetti texture. Perhaps Sims 3 has spoiled me.
Well, my idea for reconciling this look was to cut the ingredients into small pieces and then turn both tomatoes and the mushrooms into a mush. I didn’t know if an orange-brown puree would look more authentic than a slightly less brown orange-brown puree with large mushroom pieces in it, but sure, why not.
Step Three: Getting in the mood.
Now, to the ultimate ingredient of the Angry Flaming Spaghetti: the Angry.
It’s time to get our temper on and our angriest foot forward, right into that pot of boiling pasta.
Let’s get angry.
Yep, we are fucking ready to roll.
Step Four: Oh, it’s cookin’, alright.
Let it cook for about a minute: the quickest way to over-odorize your kitchen and hear about it from your family members.
Pretend like you have done nothing or they will complain.
You could add a tablespoon of water to tide over your tomatoes over before they start secreting their own juice, like I did… but it will ultimately only add to the tasteless disappointment that is the Roma tomato. (Literally any other tomato shouldn’t need this kind of help.)
Cover and simmer for fifteen minutes.
I decided to make the thick spaghetti for the recipe to replicate the enlarged texture seen in the game model.
Mix and taste. Realize that sauce tastes like mushrooms and hot sauce. Realize the mistake you made with your choice of tomatoes. Add a little bit of paprika and chili, then realize that while it compliments the hot sauces, it’s not what typically makes a pasta sauce. Be sad.
See the sauce turn a little more orange.
(Continuing the story from the image slider above.)
Continue being sad.
Remember that the Angry Flaming Spaghetti requires anger to be cooked correctly.
Get angry instead.
Go through the rest of the stages of grief as you watch the puree bubble and splatter over your cooking range.
Plate. Comfort yourself with the fact that the resulting sauce at least has a pleasant smell and delicious hot taste.
Forget to un-stick the little section of spaghetti that got glued together and be annoyed about it later.
Step Four: Setting your food on fire.
There was a chance to improve the look of the dish with the addition of a cool little fire on the top, but that didn’t happen.
Allow me to summarize:
See that tiny purple bit on the right image? Now that you know you are looking for one, you might need to stare at the sad little pool of rum for a minute before you see it. That is blue-tinted alcohol fire, but it is sadly even less visible on camera than it was in real life.
Well, we know that at least the Angry Flaming Spaghetti is working, because seeing this fairy fart of a fire for all the work I put into this dish so far was pretty infuriating.
What is it you desire for a share of your powers, the almighty God of Fire?
My pride? My soul? A tinfoil hat?
Well, there, I can at least give you a small one. Don’t think I have much to offer in regards to the other two.
Optimistically, a miniature bowl of alcohol did produce a more visible fire. Visible enough for me to prove that I did risk setting something in my kitchen on fire for this recipe.
Realistically, it was still the kind of disappointment you refuse to sponsor four years of college for.
Being served the version not soaked in rum, Ian remarked that while it didn’t make him angry, it at least made his mouth feel as if it’s on fire.
What would I do without you in my life, honestly.
If there is something you should take away from this experiment, it’s to not expect in-game food to be designed to be cooked in life, especially if it’s literally on fi-, oh and fuck Roma tomatoes.
(I know I will buy them next time anyway because they are cheap. Bastards.)
If you do try to cook some version of this and actually do manage to have it set in beautiful blue flames, sure, share. I don’t care.
(I do.)
Let your Gamer Cook know what you liked about this experiment, and what video game food you want to see made and tested for its effects.
(As long as the effects don’t involve physical injury and/or death. Emotional injury propositions are accepted.)
Leave your response in the comments below!