About the History of Pasta - Where Does it Come From?

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The history of pasta is fascinating not only because of its interesting facts but also grace to the myths and legends surrounding them. There are legends that speak of the creation of pasta at the times of ancient Romans, ascribing them as a divine creation of Gods. But the ancient sources claim that China invented pasta and Marco Polo brought it to Italy in 1292. However, when Marco said he has "discovered" pasta in China, it was implied that he had discovered something new, when in fact he discovered that the Chinese have noodles "just the same as we had".

The origins of pasta were also attributed to Etruscan times. In fact, that is 500 years before the Chinese noodles. However, this is not enough convincing evidences. In one of the Etruscan tombs scientists have found tools, seemingly to be the ones for making pasta. But they didn't exclude the possibility that they could be used for something else. The first written evidence of pasta can be found in the Apicius's cookbook, which included some recipes of nowadays well-known lasagna, and to the XII century, pasta became important enough product to attract the attention of legislators who take care of the quality of products. Indians and Arabs ate pasta at least since 1200, and possibly earlier. The Indians called them sevika, which meant "thread", and the Arabs - rishta, which also meant "thread" in Persian. Italians, in turn, have chosen the word spaghetti, formed from the word spago - "thread".

For many years people ate pasta fresh, but as a result of the increase of trading system of maritime republics of Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi, they had to invent a product that is easily stored on the board of the ship for months at the sea. Sailors from Amalfi on one of their frequent trips to Sicily took over the art of drying pasta. As a result, the Naples area began producing its own dried pasta. Early pasta masters were supposed to be fascinating weather-prophets, as they had to decide, to produce short or long pasta, depending on humidity and wind on the day.

By 1770 in English, appeared the word "macaroni". In England the word "macaroni" meant the perfection and elegance. The phrase "that's macaroni" meant something particularly good. Also in the XVIII century, Catherine de Medici introduced the pasta in France, and almost then it began to gain its popularity worldwide. In XIX century, there was settled the very first company that produced spaghetti "Il Pastifico Buitoni", founded in 1827 by a woman Giulia Buitoni. This company still exists today and it's one of the largest pasta producers in the world.

Nowadays, the process of pasta production is very advanced. When electricity was discovered in 1900th, life became much easier for the pasta industry. There were invented machines for mixing the dough and electric pasta makers, due to which the whole process of making pasta was transformed to fully automated one.