hmmmm
oil in pasta water...
When you drop your pasta into the pot of water on a rolling boil, the starch granules on the surface of the pasta, instantly swell, expand and then pop, releasing the starch into the water and causing the pasta to stick, particularly if it was not added to a rolling boil or stirred in the firast few minutes. This is when the pasta clumps and deteriorates.
You may also notice that often, even when you add your pasta to water on a rolling boil, when you add the pasta, the water comes off the boil thus stopping the movement of the pasta which also leads to clumping.
The oil also serves to prevent a raft from forming on the water surface which is why pasta water often boils over
worried about flavour absorption? make fresh pasta not the dried packet stuff. make your own so that the flavour is in the pasta. The sauce is generally supposed to accompany the pasta, not invade it.
additionally, the inclusion of salt will help to countbalance any of these flavour absorption affects as the salt will absorb flavour as it enters the starch molecules that "pop" (think of it like a pimple errupting)
as for preventing the sauce from coating the pasta - ROFL you are only using 1/2 tbs per litre, you're not using enough oil that would make the US want to invade the pot!
Fresh pasta already has oil incorporated into the pasta, whereas dehydrated/dried pasta, it has largely been compromised
but anyway - back to spoons.
Some people can go their whole lives and never really live for a single minute.
