Growing Up Italian(Sicilian)

Sicily is the Island in Red

Today we stopped at a little mom and pop truck stop near Houston, Texas. We walked into the restaurant and on the special menu was Chicken Spaghetti. Now I am guessing anyone who isn't Italian knows what this is because my fiance growing up in Mississippi knew exactly what this was. My first thought when I saw this was this is not Spaghetti and in almost knee jerk reaction I almost flipped my plate over in protest and in insult to calling this Spaghetti.  Chicken Spaghetti I am used to being served which generally just a piece of chicken boiled in the Spaghetti sauce for about 2 hours to make it nice and tender and tasty. Which is then served on a bed of Spaghetti noodles. When I was growing up Spaghetti was served every Thursday and Sunday it has been tradition since...well I have no idea how long but I believe since my mom was a child and longer then that. I am third generation American from my mother's side. My great-grandfather came from the small city in the town of Palermo of the Island of Sicily(most people refer to us as Italian). Also the same for my grandmother's family but I seem to know more about my grandfather's family then I do my grandfather but I know on my mother's side both my grandparents where Sicilian. In my family Pasta is tradition and it is always served with broccoli and nothing else, and of course Parmesan Cheese is always on the table.  Now when I walked into this restaurant and saw the sides it should have been my first clue to this is not the traditional pasta I am used too. They had an option of 4 sides mashed potatoes, green beans, pinto beans, red skin potatoes. Now as I ordered I knew I had to have my vegetable,  which the only one that wasn't a starch was the green beans. So I ordered the green beans and the red skin potatoes and my brain at the moment of ordering was doing flips because there was no broccoli and it just felt wrong and the potatoes just seemed like an extra unneeded starch, but I was hungry so might as well. Now when the waitress came to the table with our dinner and me and my fiance both ordered the same thing I looked at this white mass of noodles and instantly looked at my fiance,(he had a very excited look on his face). Fighting my urge to not flip my only meal of the day over because of a seemingly insult to my culture, I said "This is not what I expected" What I was looking at was Spaghetti noodles covered in a type of cheese sauce with chicken and Rotel tomatoes and peppers. Spaghetti noodles yes Spaghetti...........NOOOOOO!!!!! Which is what my brain was shouting at me at the time and still fighting off the urge to throw my plate at the wall, I tasted said "Chicken Spaghetti" it was actually pretty good but still not Spaghetti. Now discussing the dish with my fiance it turns out that this is something his mother makes during the holidays and he calls it "poor folk" holiday food. It reminds me that I grew up in a totally different environment then him. When I think about it even though I grew up in the North and him in the South the actual only reason I have a problem with this is because I grew up in a Sicilian family where pasta is Tradition and  everyone spends 4-8 hours making Spaghetti sauce. Which by the way Ragu and Prego are both nasty but if I was going to use one It would be Prego. So sometimes out here on the road we can experience some cultural shocks and today was defiantly one them.