History of Italian Pasta (part 1)
+ the historian's craft
Pasta: every twirl tells a story
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We turned off the Christmas lights and packed the decorations.
Meanwhile, a new year has begun.
After the last holiday-themed newsletter, the one about the Epiphany, I took a break from my job. And now, here we are again.
Firstly, let me say ciao to the new subscribers who have signed up for my newsletter. Thank you from the deep of my heart for choosing this almost weekly newsletter (three times a month with two Food Notes Letters and a special one dedicated to the Via Emilia). I consider that letter space a community place where YOU can make a difference by participating in the polls or leaving a comment. Of course, if you like my job, spread the word!
News alert!
Currently, my newsletter has the same name as my blog (Tortellini&CO). But, I have to admit, it creates a little bit of confusion. Probably above all among my Italian readers. So, next time, you will receive my newsletter with a new name:
Food Notes from Bologna. And I hope you like it.
Back to us, If you read me regularly, you know that a historical journey is about to begin about pasta, more precisely Italian pasta.
The history of Italian pasta passes through centuries and continents; many cultures have met to shape the food we perceive today as an element of Italian food and cultural identity.
What are its origins? How did it become a symbol of Italian identity?
Perhaps my answer will surprise you.
Origins are relevant but not so important.
After all, they are a cause and not an explanation.
We will use them as a starting point, but the historian is interested in analyzing the totality of environmental conditions: society, culture, economy, politics, and even geography.
Regarding the notion of identity, remember that it is a product of history that constantly evolves and changes over time.
Think of a straight line from A (the origins or roots, that are the past) to B (the identities, which are the present, tending to become future and, after all, somewhat already past). All there is between A and B are the environmental conditions.
The ones we are interested in.
Between truth and fake news
What has made pasta the symbol of Italian gastronomic and cultural identity?
It is a story based on multicultural history and a natural sequence of events.
Would you like to discover them with me?
Different cultures, political, economic, social relations, agricultural changes, and even climate converge in the Western history of pasta.
Such a rich and relevant history is not exempt from fake news.
For example, the one that says the venetian Marco Polo discovered pasta in China, and he brought that knowledge back to Italy on his return from his journey.
Instead, the truth is that 1) the news is absent from the ORIGINAL manuscripts of The Million and 2) in 13th century Italy, pasta was already known and even produced.
The misunderstanding arose when, in 1500, the Venetian publisher Giovanni Battista Ramusio republished Marco Polo's memoirs by rewriting a passage about sago flour in a way that made readers understand that the Venetian merchant discovered the pasta in China.
Even in the absence of the web, it is difficult to stop the circulation of fake news.
Just think that still in 1929, an article published in the Macaroni Journal, the press organ of the American Pasta Industry Association, attributed the discovery to a sailor of Marco Polo, a certain Mr. Spaghetti (it is false but fun).
Because I don't want, even if unintentionally, to create fake news
I need to point out that China has played a crucial role in the history of pasta, in general, and especially that of soft wheat.
However, the Chinese tradition historically has nothing to do with Western pasta, especially the Italian tradition of dry pasta made with durum wheat.
In the cultural evolution of pasta history, the type of wheat, thus the climate, plays an important role.
The agricultural revolution
The historical and geographical coordinates of origins lead to Mesopotamia, also known as the Fertile Crescent.
There, the first agricultural revolution happened 10-12 thousand years ago. The one that laid the foundations of wheat culture and that has bread as its symbol.
Here, pasta originated as a kind of bread, sometimes even leavened, sometimes dried to favor preservation.
From the Middle East, the practice spread to the Greek and, then, the Roman world.
Although the Greek term làganon and the Latin term lagana indicate a product similar to lasagna, pasta is still not what we know.
Pasta is not yet a food category with a definite identity. It is part of the family of unleavened breads. And it is an accessory ingredient that is useful for other preparations. For instance, people used it to wrap, accompany, and enrich other ingredients. Moreover, in Greek and Roman gastronomic cultures, you could find it fried or baked, but not cooked in boiling water (with a few exceptions in the late imperial age).
The turning point
The construction of the identity of modern pasta begins in SICILY, where we find some favorable environmental conditions:
The first is to have been part of Magna Graecia and to have absorbed Hellenic culture (including that of pasta).
The second is that the Romans turned the island into a granary of the Empire, like Emilia, for its favorable climate, right for growing durum wheat (the most suitable for dry pasta). And, again, they also spread food knowledge that contemplated pasta.
The Arabs spread the culture of dry pasta extensively in the regions they occupied, even Sicily, which they conquered in the 9th century.
The sea favors exports.
These are the elements we need to create the conditions for the birth of the Italian pasta industry and the success of a product. As you have noticed, it is a mix of historical, social, climatic, and geographical factors.
Trabia, Sicily
The first dried pasta industry documented by history dates back to the 12th century.
The ante litteram travelogue of the Arab geographer al-Idrisi, a Maghrebi nobleman in the service of the Norman king Roger II (the Normans succeeded the Arabs in occupying the island), has come down to us.
The author writes of "a flour food in the form of threads" made in Trabia (Palermo) and exported in barrels throughout the peninsula and beyond. The document dates back to the middle of the year 1000.
Pasta, in Italy, was known before 1295, the year of Marco Polo's return from China and his contact with Chinese spaghetti (noodles)
The pasta produced in Trabia serves the local market. And until the late 1500s, Sicilians have the nickname of mangia-maccheroni (macaroni eaters).
Of course, the production also serves for exports. Sicily's first competitor has been Sardinia since the 13th century and other maritime cities such as Genoa and Pisa.
In Genoa, the import/export business is flourishing, creating the myth of Genoa pasta for centuries without the production necessarily being local. Pasta arrives from Sicily and Sardinia and then ships to other places.
Our journey began in Mesopotamia and today ends here, in Italy and on the time threshold of the Middle Ages.
Meanwhile, we established the foundation of a new food category:
pasta, which until now is a marginal food and an accessory ingredient in the preparation of other dishes, begins to conquer the center scene.
To be continued!
Previous newsletters focusing on pasta
The Historian's Craft
A brief reflection on the work in Italy
This newsletter was supposed to start yesterday and end with a sumptuous dish.
Then, some things happened.
And to write that part, I ended up delaying the posting and taking up the space of the recipe that, I promise, I will put up next time.
A talented friend of mine told me that after introducing a small paid subscription on Instagram, has received a message from an Italian lady who wrote to be sorry that the contents were not all usable for free.
What's wrong if a person introduces a subscription to support her work?
Unfortunately, in Italy, the people who indignantly refuse to support digital writers and entrepreneurs are the same ones who feel surprised if they find out that the employer of their children and grandchildren thinks like the lady above.
It is becoming increasingly common in my country for people to refuse to pay, or less than the agreed amount, for the work done by others.
I read with regret the recent case of the young journalist who, while writing his article, discovers that he is taking less than the laborers run by the mafia.
Professionals without titles and experience are invading the world of work. They are the ones who have replaced the CV with the Instagram profile bio.
Improvisation is becoming the new rule.
It happened in my field, too.
Suddenly, in a country that doesn't read and where knowledge of the Italian language is a problem even among university students, I find out every day new colleagues.
And even though I earned a Cooking Diploma in Florence in 2018, I have worked more than 20 years between archives and university classrooms, in addition to those previously spent taking a degree, Master's, and PhD.
Recently, someone emails me asking what book to read to become like me, thinking that one book makes the historian.
Mamma mia!
In short, I experience the bleak feeling that preparation and experience are old and outdated characteristics. And it seems that even the idea we have to pay for other's work is also in crisis.
What is happening?
One of the most luminous historians of the twentieth century wasted time writing this book:
M. Bloch, The Historian's Craft, New York: Knopf, 1953
A brief annotated bibliography for historians of Italian gastronomical culture
(if you are a researcher, you should know Italian to read the original sources)
“The Macaroni Journal”, October 1929, pp.32-34
Sereni E., Note di storia dell’alimentazione nel Mezzogiorno: i Napoletani da mangiafoglia a mangiamaccheroni in Id., Terra nuova e buoi rossi, Torino, Einaudi, 1981, pp. 292-371
A.V., Contre Marco polo: une histoire comparée des pâtes alimentaires, “Médievalés”, 16-17, 1989, pp. 25-100
Capatti A., montanari M., La cucina italiana. Storia di una cultura, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1999
Serventi S., Sabban F., La pasta. Storia e cultura di un cibo universale, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2000
Montanari M., L’identità italiana in cucina, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2010
Martellotti M., Linguistica e cucina, Firenze, Olschki, 2012
Parasecoli F., Al dente. A history of food in Italy, Islington-London, Reaktion Books, 2014
Palombi A., Spaghetti Dinner. L’America di Giuseppe Prezzolini, Napoli, Grimaldi, 2016
Montanari M., Il mito delle origini, Bari-Roma, Laterza, 2019
De Bernardi A., Gli italiani a tavola. Storia sociale della pasta, Roma, Donzelli, 2019
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