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In Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge Captain Jack Sparrow wakes up from what looks like a dream and says: "spaghetti wolves!".

My question is: How did Jack know what spaghetti was?

After my reasonable research I found out it was first brought to the Americas between 1880 and 1920 by Italian immigrants, however the scriptwriters revealed that the entire movie series takes place between 1720 and 1750, meaning that there is no possible way that Jack Sparrow could have known about spaghetti. Also, I am making the assumption that wolves had not ventured into the Caribbean by 1750.

Even if there was a text or book which documented spaghetti/wolves, then Jack probably would not have come into contact with it.

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    Well, seeing as wolves are also in Europe, and so was spaghetti, and there was regular trade between the Caribbean and Europe, as shown in the first movie them crossing the ocean from England, my guess is that while neither existed in the Caribbean, that doesn't mean he had never heard of them.
    – Daishozen
    Feb 7, 2018 at 20:08
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    He's not a god. However, his unexplained affinity for spaghetti does mark him as a prophet, a follower of the only true god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This does make further sense, as he is one of the Chosen People (pirates).
    – CHEESE
    Feb 7, 2018 at 20:15
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    Basically, what Daishozen said. How do you know he's never visited Italy or Europe? He has a British accent, could have visited the continent during his youth.
    – Tim
    Feb 7, 2018 at 23:03
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    Even if there was a text or book which documented spaghetti/wolves, then Jack probably would not have come into contact with it. - actually, I'd say this seems pretty likely. Seeing as he does know those words.
    – Misha R
    Feb 8, 2018 at 9:05
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    As we see in Pirates 3, there is travel by at least some pirates between the east and the west, and pirates from all over the world make up the Brethren Court.
    – phantom42
    Oct 1, 2018 at 18:20

4 Answers 4

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Jack knew about spaghetti the same way he knew about every other anachronistic phrase he used.

The TvTropes page for 'Anachronism Stew' for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is so long that they divided it into separate pages for each movie. Suffice to say history is very different in the Pirates universe.

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    Meta answers ("Because they wrote it that way", etc) aren't generally welcome.
    – Valorum
    Nov 1, 2018 at 9:07
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    @Valorum I don't consider "history is different enough to make anachronism justification an unending task" to be a meta answer. I've removed the attempt at a humorous aside.
    – Arcanist Lupus
    Nov 1, 2018 at 13:24
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The Timekeeper was originally made in Holland. The watchmaker was also an alchemist. Instead of making it an ordinary watch, he gave it the ability to alter time.

Although there is currently little evidence that Jack traveled to the future or that the Timekeeper's warping of time includes future time periods or that someone could interact with someone from the future for very long, it may be possible, in another instance, it could of happened.

Jack is certainly off the map this time! In their struggle to keep a charmed timepiece away from their enemies, he and his crewmate Fitzwilliam P. Dalton III have unlocked another of its powers—the ability to warp time. Now they have no idea where, or rather when, they will turn up!

The young Jack Sparrow novels aimed at elementary-aged children feature several items and characters that are now also finding their way into the films such as Captain Morgan and The Trident of Poseidon. In the book Jack Sparrow: Dance of the Hours, the Timekeeper, introduced in an earlier book, creates a situation where time is warped!!

The Timekeeper seems not to work after this instance, but whose to say that it never worked again! It's also possible that someone from the future could of interacted with Jack at some point, should the Timekeeper worked for them...

That's not say that I think the anachronism trope is not the reason, but I did want to offer a speculative answer based on an existing object that relates to a kind of time travel.

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We see Jack travel to Singapore, and the Brethren Court are made up of pirates from all over the world. So it's not unreasonable that Jack heard of (or even ate) spaghetti and wolves in his many global travels.

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Jack Sparrow is notoriously well travelled; globally. And crosses paths with many sailors & pirates from far off places. His knowledge of just about anything from anywhere would not be surprising or far-fetched.

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  • Hi, welcome to SF&F. This seems like a complete guess. Do you have any evidence he had previously been somewhere he would have been introduced to spaghetti? It is preferred to post answers for which some form of support from the work, sanctioned related works, or the creators can be found. You might want to read How to Answer.
    – DavidW
    Jul 1, 2022 at 17:06

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