Cereal Chem 55:23 - 31.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Scanning Electron Microscopy of Cooked Spaghetti.

J. E. Dexter, B. L. Dronzek, and R. R. Matsuo. Copyright 1978 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

A scanning electron microscope was used to study changes in structure of spaghetti that occurred during cooking. The exterior of uncooked spaghetti appeared to be coated with a thin protein film that retained its integrity during cooking except for a few ruptured areas. When spaghetti was steeped in water at 22 C, the interior appearance of the spaghetti was altered from a compact amorphous structure with few visible starch granules to a more porous structure with starch granules that were loosely held within a discontinuous protein matrix. When the spaghetti was cooked in boiling tap water, the interior structure varied from an open filamentous network near the outer surface where starch gelatinization was complete to a compact amorphous structure that is characteristic of dried spaghetti where the cooking water does not penetrate. Microscopic examination of cooked spaghetti that had been incubated in 90% dimethyl sulfoxide and a combination of alpha- and beta-amylase suggested that the filamentous network near the outer edge of the spaghetti interior was composed of a starch-coated protein network that was interconnected by starch fibrils.