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China, claims another camp. Still others credit the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking minority who straddled Central Asia and China. The more research I did, the more confused I became; it seemed like there were limitless theories about noodles and how they’d spread.” The truth, it seems, is that there might not be one single source of creation for the almighty noodle, and that pasta was being made simultaneously — in different styles, forms and fashions — throughout many different parts of the world. In addition to the traditions outlined by Liu-Liu, there’s evidence of pasta in the Jewish Talmud, written in the fifth century A.D., where an argument takes place over whether or not boiled noodles violate Jewish dietary laws. And then there’s the 10th century A.D. Persian word “lakhsha,” which referred to fresh noodles — versus “itriyah,” which indicated dry ones. For pasta historians, the bickering over noodles' tangled origin story seems endless. But one thing is certain: By the time Marco Polo returned from his journeying, pasta was already being made and eaten in Italy. Records from a Northern Italian solider taken in 1279 (while Polo was globetrotting) indicate that he owned a basket of dried pasta that was valuable enough to be noted in an offi- cial estate record alongside his other personal belongings. Moreover, the Muslim geographer al-Idrisi had, almost 100 years before, wrote of seeing pasta produced on Sicily (a destination which would soon become the trade epicenter for dried pasta) while he traveled around that island. In the subsequent centuries, it’s impossible to overstate the profound impact pasta has had on the social, political and emotional vitality of Italians, twirling and rolling its way into the hearts of generations while becoming not just a meal staple, but a symbol of delicious cultural pride. Pasta was largely considered a food for the aristocracy throughout the Renaissance, but by the 18th century, it had become a culinary staple of the people, thanks to the development of industrialized pasta-making machines like the torchio, a mechanical press for stamping out vermicelli noodles. In Naples, where, by the 1700s, residents had gained the nickname “mangiamaccheroni” (macaroni- eaters) because of the sheer quantity of pasta people consumed, the number of pasta shops soared from 60 in the year 1700 to 280 by 1785. Of course, this chest-swelling pasta love also found its way into literature. In Boccaccio’s 1353 canonical classic work, The Decameron , the author writes of a mythical land known as Bengodi, where pasta-makers rolled maca- roni and ravioli down mountains of grated parmesan to hungry townspeople waiting below. In a 1362 work by

ime and again in the United States, it’s been proven that — even in the face of facts, statistics and ample evidence — it’s almost impossible to completely stop the spread of erroneous historical legends or pop culture myths. This is particularly true when it comes to

food. Despite generations of attempts to debunk wrong- headed lore, hormonal teens still believe that chocolate can cause acne, glasses-wearing kids think that eating carrots will improve their vision, and people still trust that the first “sandwich” was actually created by the Earl of Sandwich. Oh, how wrong they are. One of the most far-reaching — and pervasive — rumors believed by many is that Marco Polo introduced pasta to Italy as a result of his travels in China during the 13th century, based on a handful of short passages in his book, The Travels of Marco Polo . And while the Chinese have assuredly been making and eating noodles since far earlier than any version graced Italian shores (one of the first written records of the word for “noodle” appears in a Chinese dictionary from the third century A.D.), Marco Polo did not bring them back as part of his globetrotting adventures. “The Marco Polo myth has refused to die,” writes culinary scholar Corby Kummer in a 1986 article for The Atlantic . “Italians accuse Americans of promulgating it, beginning with an influential article in a 1929 issue of Macaroni Journal (now Pasta Journal ), an American trade magazine, which has inspired countless advertisements, restaurant placemats, cookbooks and even movies. In the 1938 film The Adventures of Marco Polo , Gary Cooper points to a bowl of noodles and asks a Chinese man what he calls them. ‘In our language,’ the man replies, ‘we call them spa-get.’” And though America is likely responsible for promoting a history of noodles that’s not quite based in reality, pinpointing pasta’s exact path from moment-of-creation to source of immense cultural pride for Italians — and Italian- Americans — is nothing short of a squiggly road. “Food historians have produced an array of conflicting theories about the provenance of noodles. Some credit the ancient Etruscans, suggesting that pictures in caves depict pasta-making. Or perhaps the first incarnation of noodles appeared with Arab caravan traders, who devel- oped dried ones that were light and easy to transport, predecessors of the instant kind,” writes Jen Liu-Liu in her culinary history and memoir, On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta . “But then maybe the staple originated in the birthplace of wheat, in the Middle East, and traveled by divergent paths to Italy and

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