“That’s macaroni!”

Walt Disney set the tone for all romantic dates after the animation film, Lady and the Tramp, in 1955. Since then couples and comedic parodies have been replicating that romantic scene. While Lady was on her date with Tramp, I wonder if they joined in on the age-old debate of who was credited for inventing pasta. Was it the Italians, Arabs or Chinese?

For many years, people believed the myth that Marco Polo brought the Italians the invention of pasta from China during one of his explorations of the Far East. Marco Polo did do a lot, but discovering pasta was not on the list. By this time, not only Italians, but Indian cultures as well were enjoying the stringy noodles.

Around 500 B.C. the Etruscans, who lived in Western Italy, developed the flat noodle called ‘lagane’, later came to be called lasagna. The Romans then improved on the noodle by using wheat flour. According to some, lagane can’t be considered pasta because it was baked not boiled.

During the 8^th century invasion of Sicily, Arabs introduced the Italians to dried and then boiled pasta. Before long, Palmero invented techniques to mass produce pasta and feed thousands. By the1400s pasta was then ready to make its voyages across the globe. As time went by several different types of pasta were invented and their names incorporated into languages other than Italian. In 1770, ‘that’s macaroni’ was used in English to mean something particularly good.

Long before the Arabs and the Etruscans, pasta can be traced some 4,000 years ago. Archaeologist discovered a pot with 50cm yellow strand of noodles preserved by clay near the Yellow River in China. These noodles were made out of a grass millet grain. Rice noodles weren’t used until around 1700 B.C.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4335160.stm