Hoaxes. Spaghetti Bushes BBC April 1st Hoax

• Swiss Spaghetti Bushes
• French and Poisson d'Avril
• Poor Robin's Almanac [1790]

Swiss Spaghetti Bushes

Where does Spaghetti come from?
Back in 1957,
no lesser source than the BBC, informed us that Spaghetti came from bushes.

Now my guess is that you could resurrect this April
Fools
day stunt for the next April Fools
day.  Today's
children are more
sophisticated in many ways, for example, they would not believe that a radio programme purporting that Martians had landed in America was true.  However, today children are notoriously ignorant on the sources of food.
All they know is that if they want food, they just open a ready meal or raid the fridge.

My favoured
method to trick older children is to
recreate the hoax, but to substitute Tagliatelle for Spaghetti. While, for younger children the idea of a
plain pasta tree may capture their imagination.

The original 1957 BBC hoax
succeed because it was shown on the prestigious Panorama Programme.  In true reverential, BBC documentary tone, Richard Dimbleby explained how Spaghetti was harvested from
bushes, dried, and then processed into strands of spaghetti.

Will remembers the Spaghetti Saga and believed it himself, as he didn't
know any better!!   Will recalls, 'We didn't
have a TV and I had
to rely on friends repeating the tale; whether they had stayed up to watch I know not.  I was 10 years old'.

Also, the audience lapped it up, a few people even phoned in asking where
they could buy a Spaghetti bush.

As an aside, what I like about a good spoof is that it not only fools people, but
also someone else gets mad, in this case staff in the BBC got upset because they felt that the BBC had wasted a Panorama slot on a mere hoax.

Well this Programme went out on April 1st 1957.  It would three months before Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was to tell us: 'most of our people have never had it so good'.  I leave it to you decide if he was talking about Spaghetti bushes or Tagliatelle Trees!

Sago Tree

We have a local counterpart of the spaghetti joke.  It has to do
with a local refreshment ingredient called sago (balled tapioca), which when
sweetened with arnibal (sugar cane syrup) and combined with gulaman
(gelatin), results is a very refreshing drink.

When we ask schoolkids, or even adults: "Have you seen a sago tree?"

They experience a temporary brain crash, before they ask you: "Is there
really one?"

Footnote:
Item kindly sent in by Roger M.

French and Poisson d'Avril

The French have their own idiosyncratic take on April Fool's day with Poisson
d'Avril.  You may have guessed that poisson means fish, and this theme is
taken up by French schoolboys who pin paper fish on their classmates.

It's not straightforward getting the Poisson d'Avril to stick on the victim's
back.  If you make a fish and sew on a safety pin it's not easy to get
people to sit still while you unobtrusively attach the poisson.  Velcro is
good, but there never seems to be any around just when you need it.

As is so often the case with April Fool's day, the precise derivation of
Poisson d'Avril is both obscure and disputed.  Perhaps it's just because
fish are considered stupid and easy to catch.  A more erudite origin of
Poisson d'Avril claims that those born under the star sign Pisces (the fish)
forget that their sign ends on March 20th.

Sauf en Laisse - Except on a leash!

Pesce d'Aprile in Italy

The traditional April Fool's trick (Pesce d'Aprile) in Italy consists of
a kid surreptitiously attaching a paper cutout of a pesciolino (small fish)
to the back of a school mate. Then his friends jokingly ask: L'hai
visto?-Chi?-Il pesce d'Aprile! (Have you seen the April Fool!) and makes
derisive comments about the victim.

The more sophisticated adult pranks are classics such as rumors that
money is being give out: "Si distribuiscono soldi a tutti, andate in via Tal
dei Tali al numero..."

Each year there are new pranks which tricks gullible individuals.
The Italian media report them on April 2nd and ranks the migliori pesci
d'Aprile.  One Italian speciality is a recipe for ravioli al pesce
d'aprile to celebrate April 1st.

Poor Robin's Almanac [1790]*

The first of April, some do say, April The 1st
Is set apart
for All Fools' Day.
But why the people call it so,
Nor I, nor
they themselves do know.
But on this day are people sent
On
purpose for pure merriment.

* Poor Robin's Almanac was a British almanac. It was published
from circa 1663 until 1828. The poet Robert Herrick is thought to
have established it.

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