Where did spaghetti come from originally?
While some historians believe pasta originated in Italy, most are convinced Marco Polo actually brought it back from his epic voyage to China. The earliest known pasta was made from rice flour and was common in the east. In Italy, pasta was made from hard wheat and shaped into long strands.
In fact, it was the creation of one Italian in particular: Nicola de Cecco. How did pasta come to Europe and when did it first become established in Italy?
Spaghetti (Italian: [spaˈɡetti]) is a long, thin, solid, cylindrical pasta. It is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine. Like other pasta, spaghetti is made of milled wheat and water and sometimes enriched with vitamins and minerals. Italian spaghetti is typically made from durum wheat semolina.
While we do think of pasta as a culturally Italian food, it is likely the descendent of ancient Asian noodles. A common belief about pasta is that it was brought to Italy from China by Marco Polo during the 13th century.
HONG KONG — Pasta is Italy's staple food, but it's not only Italians who indulge in platefuls of the doughy concoction every day. People all over the world adore it.
Italian pasta was introduced to Japan during the Edo period (1603 to 1868), but spaghetti found its way into the mainstream Japanese diet via the U.S., not Italy. During the American occupation of Japan post-WWII, spaghetti featured heavily in military food rations.
The Origin Of Marinara Sauce
The exact location of Marinara Sauce's creation seems to be lost to time, but it was likely first developed in the southern region of Italy, in either Naples or Sicily, after tomatoes first appeared in Europe via explorers from the New World in the 16th century.
According to history, however, pasta's earliest roots begin in China, during the Shang Dynasty (1700-1100 BC), where some form of pasta was made with either wheat or rice flour.
Da Vinci also had a great passion for invention and cookery, and is credited as being the inventor of spaghetti.
Noodles existed in China and Asia long before pasta appeared in the Mediterranean world, and the legend goes that Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy from China in the 13th century.
Do real Italians eat spaghetti and meatballs?
While spaghetti and meatballs is not a meal served in Italy, the origin of the meal started with Italian immigrants coming to the U.S. in 1880-1920.
Pizza has a long history. Flatbreads with toppings were consumed by the ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks. (The latter ate a version with herbs and oil, similar to today's focaccia.) But the modern birthplace of pizza is southwestern Italy's Campania region, home to the city of Naples.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, dried pasta became popular for its easy storage. This allowed people to store dried pasta in ships when exploring the New World. These then were the world's first instant noodles. Not Japan's Nissin Foods' “Top Ramen” which was invented in 1958 (and, later, cup noodles in 1971).
Naturally, we tend to take commonplace objects for granted, because they have always been there.
However, food historians say the ancient Greeks invented pasta, ancient Rome adopted it from them, and medieval Arab traders may have pioneered dry pasta.
The first written references to noodles or pasta can be found in Chinese texts dating back about 3200 years. Author Jen Lin-Liu says it's likely that pasta developed in China and in the Middle East within a couple hundred years ago.
The Chinese have been wielding chopsticks since at least 1200 B.C., and by A.D. 500 the slender batons had swept the Asian continent from Vietnam to Japan. From their humble beginnings as cooking utensils to paper-wrapped bamboo sets at the sushi counter, there's more to chopsticks than meets the eye.
You can't simply call pasta just spaghetti because there are different kinds of pasta out there. But, you can call spaghetti pasta because it's one of the many variants of pasta. So, spaghetti is considered pasta and pasta can be anything including the spaghetti.
Ramen is a long, thin noodle frequently used in Korean and Japanese cooking.
What is spaghetti called in Japan?
Many places will claim that meatballs originated in Italy, while others say that they were an American creation. The answer to this question is actually neither! The earliest known origins of meatballs can be traced back to ancient Rome, with several meatball-like recipes originating in a very old cookbook.
Adding extra sugar to any dish may seem like an American thing, but according to Michael Chiarello, chef and owner of Bottega Restaurant, it's customary practice in southern Italian cuisine.
The use of tomato sauce with pasta appeared for the first time in 1790 in the Italian cookbook L'Apicio moderno, by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi.
There are four great Roman pastas, all connected: Gricia, Cacio e Pepe, Carbonara, and Amatriciana. They each play off of the others and reveal different sides to the same concept.