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History of Pasta By Stefano Milioni
All over the world and in Italy too, a lot of
people are convinced that pasta was invented in China and that Marco Polo
brought it to Italy in the 13th century. However, is enough to read what
is written in "Il Milione", the book in which Marco Polo relates about
his voyage in Far East, to be convinced of the contrary: that at the time,
in Italy, pasta was a very common food. Marco Polo, in fact, writes that
in China he saw and tested "lasagne similar to those that we prepare with
wheat flour". So, who invented pasta? We have always the bad habit to go
in search of who invented something, and where and when. But in the case
of food it is impossible to give a sure answer to these questions. Mainly
when we refer to a food that today is the basic food of a nation, if there
is an "inventor", it is always hunger, famine, desperation, fear of the
future. And this is even more true in the case of pasta. To give a synthetic
answer we can say that pasta was invented - and could not be invented other
than - by a population who lived in a big town, center of political and
military power, in the heart of a geographical area where cereals were
the basic ingredient of the diet. Cereals, and particularly wheat, have
been for millennia the basic nourishment of peoples living in the Mediterranean
area. Their diffusion was due, in addition to the nutritional value, to
the fact that, in comparison with other agricultural products, cereals
had an extended-storage capacity. To be eaten, cereals had to be milled
and then the flour was cooked in two different ways: mixed into a boiling
liquid, like water, broth or milk (like our polenta or semolino), or worked
into dough and baked in the oven or over fiery stones to prepare bread
or focacce. These two different ways to prepare grain were common in all
the countries of the Mediterranean area and for centuries the technique
was always the same, with no changes. But, starting from the 3rd century
B.C., thanks to its increasing power, the domination of Rome spread from
the geographical center of the Mediterranean sea as far as the borders
of the world known in those times. In the meantime, the city of Rome
increased its population from 100,000 inhabitants in 264 B.C. to 313,000
in 130 B.C., to 1,000,000 in 55 B.C., to 1,500,000 one hundred years later,
under the empire of Caesar Augustus. Try to imagine how difficult could
be, 2,000 years ago, to manage a town of 1,500,000 people! The main striking
problem was to guarantee enough food to his inhabitants: in fact, the agricultural
production from the country-side around Rome was not sufficient for such
a huge population, and too expensive in comparison with the goods coming
from the conquered countries.
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To resolve this problem, the Roman government
organized a supply system, first from Southern-Italian regions (in 70 B.C.
Sicily produced over 500 millions lbs. of wheat), then, North-African and
Middle-East countries. During the empire of Caesar Augustus, each year,
a fleet of 300 ships conveyed from Egypt to Rome 270,000,000 lbs. of cereals.
And 350,000,000 lbs. from North-African countries, 80.000.000 from Sicily,
and smaller quantities from Sardinia, Syria, Spain, for a total amount
of 800,000,000 lbs. In spite of this enormous availability and organizational
efforts, due to frequent famines or shipwrecks, it could happen that in
the Roman granaries there was not enough wheat to satisfy the entire population.
In addition, the storage of such huge quantities of grain created a further
problem: is easy to suppose which could be the sanitary conditions
of the granaries of that time, with no chemical products or modern techniques
to protect goods from animals, insects and parasites. Just to give
you an idea of the problem we can remember that in 62 A.D. Nero was obliged
to throw in the Tiber river all the grain stored in the granaries because
it was so infested with parasites that it was no good for food. The
main part of this wheat was distributed monthly, free of charge or at special
price, to lower-classes whose first problem was to stop the action of insects
and parasites, using two different techniques, toasting or milling the
grains. The toasted grain could be stored for some time and were
milled before cooking them in boiling water, to prepare a sort of polenta.
On the contrary, the transformation of wheat in grain flour was only a
temporary solution. It could be infected not only by new parasites, but
also by humidity and mould. To avoid this risk, people used to bake bread
and focacce twice over, transforming them into a sort of sea-biscuit, a
product easy to store for some time. Or to work flour into dough, to roll
out it in thin foils and let it dry in the sun. The result was "dried pasta",
the first dried pasta in the history, preservable for long time (at least
one year and more) and usually cooked mixing it in vegetable soups, the
famous Roman pultes. Therefore, the origins of pasta are not so glamorous
and noble as we would like: pasta is a humble product, invented in
poor families to prevent a basic food from deterioration and to settle
a provision in fear of failing the next public distribution of cereals,
due to famine in the producing areas, storms over the ships that
carried them to Rome, or a more dangerous infestation in the Roman granaries.
In fact, the production of pasta started in Rome during the imperial period,
or alternatively in a place where, in the same moment, these three
conditions took place: 1 A town crowded by over one million of inhabitants,
depending on external external supplies of food, with no integration with
the surrounding country-side. 2 A population always in fear of hunger because
of subsequent famines 3 The risks connected with the storage of grain,
subjected to easy deterioration, risks moreover serious inside single
families, depending from the monthly assignments of the public granaries
and unable to find or buy other kinds of food. Thanks to its poor origin,
pasta had no place in the pages of writers, historians and poets of the
imperial age. There is no mention of pasta because when food becomes the
subject of history, it is the food displayed on the tables of the rich
and the powerful who, in imperial Rome, undoubtedly did not eat pasta.
On the other hand, if a poet praised the dream of the country life, in
which rustic and simple foods are protagonist of the daily table, also
in this case pasta was neglected, because it had no relationship with
the pleasures of country life: pasta is a product invented to survive in
a huge town, and is not a good subject for a poet. Unless the poet
is a non conformist person like Horace, who liked to show off attitudes
in contrast with those of the powerful people living around him.
In the VI Satire of the 1x Book, as a proof of a quiet and healthy
life he wrote "...then (in the evening) I come back home to have supper
with a bowl of leeks, chick-peas and lagane". Well, those "lagane",
a word still used in many Southern Italian regions, are nothing but our
"lasagne". And Apicius, the author of De Re Coquinaria, the first cookbook
ever written, makes use of them in many dishes, never minding to explain
how to prepare them. But Apicius always gives the reader careful directions
about every step of the recipes, and this is a mark of how common was the
preparation of lagane in that time in Rome. However, if we compare the
two texts, we discover that there is an essential difference between
Horace's and Apicius lagane. The first are poor ingredients thrown in the
pot to prepare a simple and frugal meal. In the recipes of Apicius they
are elements of a refined and elaborated dish, that requires long
cooking time and the ability of a chef. The first are lagane of dried pasta,
the second are made with fresh pasta. This is a very important distinction:
in the following centuries, when writers and historians will mention "pasta",
it will be always fresh pasta, prepared in the kitchens of the kings and
the nobles, worked into dough with eggs, cut into strips or squares, rolled
up, stuffed with a rich mixture of meat, fish and vegetables: agnolotti,
tortellini, ravioli. But fresh pasta was a food of the rich and the powerful
long time before Rome reached the status to invent "dried pasta". The oldest
testimony of pasta in Italy is in Cerveteri, inside an Etruscan tomb of
the 4th century B.C. (the tomb of a very rich man, with magnificent alto-rilievi):
the two central columns are decorated with a stucco-work reproducing all
the tools necessary (even today) to prepare pasta: the rolling-board,
the rolling-pin, the ladle for the water, the knife to cut the dough and
the roller-knife to give to lasagne the finishing touch of a waved edge.
On the other hand, we are lacking of testimony of dried pasta for
about one millennium. Only after year 1000 A.D. we can find traces of pasta
with a shape different from lasagne. The first new shape is vermicelli,
whose production, of certain Arab origin, started in Sicily and from there
spread all over Italy. And, then, maccheroni, a famous word to indicate
different shapes, like gnocchi or pellets, all made squashing the dough
with fingers or special tools. It is only after the 14th century
that we can notice a growth in the creation of new shapes of pasta, but
is always a local occurrence and not a sign of an evolution toward industrial
production: pasta remains a emergency food, a supply for the future
whose consumption became usual only because obliged to renew the provisions
year by year. In the city of Naples, that we all identify as the world
capital of pasta, until the 17th century lasagne or vermicelli were not
a basic food. On the contrary, up to that time, Neapolitans were called
Mangiafoglie, leaf-eaters. But under the Spanish domination, marked by
a foolish management of the public administration, the problems connected
with the supply of grain became even more serious and frequent, exactly
as it happened during the Roman empire, and forced the population to make
use of dried pasta as a provision. A dried pasta that, thanks to the introduction
of new machines, like the kneading-trough and the press, was far different
from the original Roman lagane and very similar to the pasta that we all
enjoy today. The persistence of this state of emergency throughout the
entire Spanish domination, over a period of two centuries, turned Neapolitans
from Mangiafoglie into Mangiamaccheroni, maccheroni eaters, a new title
that marked them all over the world since 17th century . Once more pasta
becomes the symbol of a nation not for its gastronomical merits,
not because it was a fashionable food able to deal out pleasures, but only
for its skill in fighting hunger and lack of resources. As a matter of
fact, in the same years and through the beginning of the 19th century,
the most refined cuisine triumphed on the tables of the rich and the nobility,
plentiful with fresh stuffed pasta that, little by little, became a gastronomical
habit of the wealthy classes, who not always prepared it at home, but more
and more bought it in the fresh pasta shops that, mainly in Northern Italian
cities, were opened by specialized craftsmen. After this quick stroll through
the centuries, we can quietly state that dried pasta is a culinary invention
uniquely and typically Italian and whose preparation and consumption spread
throughout Italy because of a combination of numerous events and historical-social
conditions. At the same time, pasta appears to have been biding its time
for centuries, awaiting a catalyst that would provide the necessary impetus
toward achievement of its full potential-elevation to the status of a primary
food capable not only of satisfying hunger but also of pleasing the palate.
Until the 18th century, consumption of pasta was essentially confined to
the poor, who adopted it principally because of its extended-storage capacity
and its outstanding nutritional value, not because they found it
particularly appetizing. It was customarily boiled and eaten alone or flavored,
at most, with a bit of grated cheese. As a dish, it had little or
no subtlety and no fuss was made in presenting it. Vermicelli was clutched
in the hand and lifted to the mouth without ceremony. It was only when
it was combined with tomato that pasta became a real "dish" and a
basic element of the diet, one that inspired cooks to concoct recipes for
publication and diffusion. So, speaking of pasta, and looking at the pasta
that we are used to eat today, is important to sketch out the history of
the tomato up to their meeting. The tomato reached Italy, officially at
least, in the 17th century. It was brought into the country by the Spanish
but they did not at the same time introduce any culinary preparations in
which the fruit was employed. It apparently required more than a century
and the ingenuity of the Southerners, stimulated by chronic famine, to
bring the tomato and pasta together. Who took that fateful step,
it is impossible to say but it appears that some teamsters in the Trapani
area, who were soon emulated by the rural inhabitants of western Sicily,
started the practice of adding a substantial amount of tomato cut into
slices to the water in which macaroni or vermicelli was boiled. In Campania,
the adopted homeland of pummarola or tomato sauce, cultivation of tomatoes
on a large scale was late in getting under way, despite the fact
that the plant was first grown in the region as early as 1596. What is
certain is that a dish of macaroni flavored with a bit of cheese was selling
at the end of the 18th century for two centesimi (cents) in the inns of
Naples. In the North, meanwhile, tomatoes were cultivated as ornamental
plants. The Sienese botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1500-1570) was the
first in Italy to call the tomato by the name it has since retained
in Italian, pomo d'oro or golden apple. Mattioli was referring to one of
the colors the tomato assumes during its ripening. While Italians refer
to the fruit as a pomodoro (the plural is pomodori), the French, English,
Spanish and Germans continue to use terms directly derived from the
name the Nahuatl Indians of Mexico gave it, tomatl. In discussing the eggplant,
Mattioli reported in 1544 that "another species, known as Pomi d'Oro, has
been brought into Italy in our day. The fruits are compressed in shape,
like rose apples, and grow in clusters. At first they are green in color
and from some plants are as red as blood when they ripen, while others
are the color of gold. Both are eaten in the same way." That "way" was
boiled, cut in slices, dredged in flour and fried. Within three centuries,
the tomato had been accepted everywhere in Italy. In Il Cuoco Galante ("The
Gallant Cook"), one of the first complete Italian cookbooks, Neapolitan
Vincenzo Corrado (1734-1836) wrote that "various tasty dishes can be made
from the tomato. Sauce prepared from them can be used to flavor meats,
fish, eggs, pastas and vegetables. A good cook can easily create delicious
tidbits from them and a universal sauce [since it can be used in numerous
ways]. The tomato not only pleases the palate with its flavor but also
benefits the body, since its acidic juice aids digestion, particularly
during the summer season when people's stomachs are flaccid and prey to
nausea because of the overpowering heat. These summer tomatoes are round
and of a saffron color. They have a skin that must be removed by rotating
them over the coals and plunging them afterward in boiling water. It is
possible to remove the seeds, to assure more delicate and satisfying preparations,
by opening a hole at the point where the stem joins the tomato or cutting
the tomatoes in half." Earlier, however, the literature of the tomato
was rather scanty, which is the most convincing evidence that the plant
was not widely diffused. One of the first publications dedicated to the
cultivation of tomatoes was Giovanni Francesco Angelita Roco's I Pomi d'Oro,
issued at Recanati in the Marches in 1607. However, it was not widely circulated.
A century later, in 1705, Francesco Gaudentio, lay coadjutor for provisions
of a community of Jesuits in Rome, provided the first Italian recipe for
cooked tomatoes in his Panunto Toscano, the manuscript of which is preserved
in the Communal Library of Arezzo. The recipe: "These fruits are very similar
to apples. They are cultivated in gardens and are cooked in the following
way: pick the tomatoes, cut them in pieces and put the pieces in a pan
with oil, salt, chopped garlic and wild mint. Stew them, frequently stirring
the mixture. The dish will be even better if you add a bit of tender molignane
[eggplant] or white cucuzze [squash]." Only in the late 18th and early
19th centuries was the tomato "officially" endorsed by gourmets and leading
chefs, beginning precisely with Corrado, a Celestinian monk who, from his
privileged observation post in Naples, reported that he had tasted his
first "leg of kid coated with tomato paste and larded with lardoons
and spikes of rosemary and roasted in the oven with butter and herbs."
In the third edition of Il Cuoco Galante, published in 1773, the attentive
gourmet listed the following recipes involving tomatoes: (from Treatise
One - Pythagorean Fare)-stuffed with veal, dressed with salpicanti (saupiquet,
a pungent sauce), stuffed and cooked in butter, filled with greens,
stuffed with rice, alla Corradina, stuffed with fish, cooked in truffle
sauce, alla napolitana, in croquettes, in fritters and in a pudding. Two
years later, Francesco Leonardi, former cook to Catherine II the Great,
Empress of All the Russias, published his Apicio Moderno. In the
second edition of that work, which appeared in 1797, there is the first
recipe for culi (or coulis), a tomato sauce in the French style that was
then highly fashionable. However, there is no mention of its possible use
with pasta. A further 40 years were to pass before the first recipe for
vermicelli col pomodoro (fine spaghetti with tomato) appeared. However,
it is always possible that many housewives had already been combining tomato
and pasta for some time, although such a practice was not widely
diffused at the time. The fascinating Neapolitan watercolors of the early
19th century always depict maccaronari or macaroni eaters stuffing themselves,
using their hands in the process, with pasta in bianco. That means
it was flavored only with grated cheese - or incaciata, according to the
expression of that period. The first historical vermicelli co le pommodoro
was described in 1839 by Ippolito Cavalcanti, Duke of Buonvicino
(1787-1860), in "Cucina Casareccia in Dialetto Napoletano" ("Home Cooking
in Neapolitan Dialect"), an appendix of La Cucina Teorico-Pratica (Theoretical
and Practical Cooking). In Rule 10 of the chapter devoted to sauces, Cavalcanti
adds, "It [tomato] is good if you want to prepare macaroni or any other
type of small pasta. You should not put the sauce on top of boiled meat,
eggs, chicken and fish, which are good with a bit of butter. Make
this excellent sauce so that you can flavor vermicelli but, if you baste
it with oil, it will be even better and more savory." It is in only in
the first half of the 19th century that the consumption of dried
pasta rapidly spread throughout society, became fashionable and serving
it was a mark of distinction. However, the addition of sauce made pasta
a messy dish to eat with the hands and an instrument that was as curious
as it had been neglected until that time, soon began to appear on the tables
of the middle class: the fork. That implement had been around in various
forms for several centuries and had filled various functions at the tables
of refined and snobbish households throughout Europe. However, its use
as a standard utensil had not been established. The fork was put out on
the tables of a restricted number of nobles in order to impress guests
rather than assist them in eating. The spread of the practice of eating
pasta dressed with tomato sauce led to the adoption of the fork as an everyday
utensil. The numerous models previously known were abandoned. The shape
and proportions of the fork were modified and, within a few years, a single
format appeared. The new standard implement had four curved tines, the
length of which was no more than twice their combined width. Any maitre
d' hotel today could deliver a lengthy commentary on the precise shapes
and functions of forks, including those used for eating fish, meats, "sauced"
dishes, desserts and fruits. And he would no doubt express disapproval
of any misuse of the utensil. It is a fact, however, that for two
centuries now it has been the practice in private homes and most restaurants
throughout the world to use for nearly all purposes only the fork designed
for pasta, with its four curved tines. Pasta flavored with oil and tomato
constitutes only a beginning, not a gastronomic finish line, for that
essential dish opened up a new world of flavors and aromas. While inventiveness
was stalled for centuries at boiled vermicelli with, perhaps, some
cheese added to make it more tasty, the imaginations of house wife initially,
and then of chefs and gourmets yielded within the space of a few years
a host of preparations in which the finest products of the Italian tradition,
like mozzarella, provola cheese, Parmigiano, ham, guanciale (cured pork
cheek) and an unending parade of cheeses, fish, meats, preserved foods
and delicacies were twinned with tomato and the sauce made from it. Pasta
and all these traditional products were called into play in a veritable
orgy of innovation, in which Italian cuisine was entirely renewed. The
19th century, the century of great political changes in Italy, from foreign
domination to the national unity, the century of Risorgimento, Garibaldi
and Cavour, is also the time of the final evolution of pasta, the passage
from misery to nobleness, from a provision to a delicacy. And in the same
moment in which the creativity of the chefs breaks-out, the inventive power
of pasta producers emerges. In this century, small and big pasta factories
start methodical research for new shapes able, at the same time, to catch
the attention of the consumers, and assure them new and unknown gastronomical
pleasures. The history of pasta in the last two centuries is a mix of fantasy,
technology and marketing. A short time for a long and complex story that
should deserve a sole new lecture that we don't want to start here now,
because it is too late and it is time to go home to eat a good dish
of pasta.