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The Origins of Pasta!

Pasta's origins are very ancient. It's said that they go back actually to the Etruscans. Maybe they used to prepare the first lasagna made of spelt ( a kind of cereal like wheat, but far more resistant against bad weather and diseases).

Later on, the romans used to make a very simple dough with water and flour from which they made a kind of lasagna, called lagane. This word is used also today in the center and the south of Italy to call some kind of Pasta.

Anyway, we must explode the myth that it was Marco Polo who brought Pasta in Italy when he came back from China. In fact, in 1279 a.d., when the great Venetian explorer was still in the East, in Genoa a will was draft with which a cerain Ponzio Bastone bequeathed a crate full of maccheroni! Certainly, we know that the Arabs, already in the XI century, brought Pasta around the Mediterranean basin, but it spread in an extraordinary way only in Italy, due to the very favorable climate.

Then in XVII century in Naples, Pasat met Tomato, arrived in Europe after America was discovered. This was a real gastronomic revolution, because this new joining quickly (and perhaps happily) caused the forgetfulness of those matching bittersweet and salted so popular until then. But pasta didn't go at once onto the princes' tables, because since then it was eaten using hands. It was near the year 1700 that a chamberlain of King Ferdinand II, a certain Gennaro Spadaccini, had the brilliant idea of using a fork with 4 short prongs, that became a common practice. Since then pasta was served also during the Courts' banquets all over Italy and from there its world tour began.

Today modern technology allows the standardization of pasta production and the reproduction of the ideal climatic conditions. So pasta production spread out in a lot of Nations. This overall propagation makes pasta the most known Italian food all around the world.

Ref: http://italiancook.ca/originpasta.htm

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