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THE MYTHS SURROUNDING THE WORLD'S FAVOURITE DISH, DEBUNKEDDid Marco Polo bring pasta back from China, or is that a myth?
How did the Neapolitan "macharoni" turn into the ubiquitous spaghetti?
Is it even an Italian dish? Hundreds of shapes and thousands of recipes give expression to the culture and products of the country's regions. But spaghetti with tomato sauce remains Italy's identity dish par excellence.
Massimo Montanari goes in search of the dish's true origins, tracing its history along the multiple, intricate routes taken by its raw ingredients to merge and become a distinctive element of culinary tradition.
It took almost two thousand years and input from the Far East, the Arabic world, and the Americas, for the dish to take centre stage. Its development is the result of chance encounters, unplanned exchanges, and unpredictable intersections. As we dig in search of spaghetti's origins, we find its strands wrap right around the world.
"Learned and entertaining."-Il Giornale
A propos de l'auteur
Massimo Montanari, currently Professor of Medieval History at Bologna University, is a scholar in Food Studies. He has been invited as visiting professor to a number of leading universities in Europe, Japan, the United States, Mexico and Canada, and is one of the founders of the international review Food & History.
Gregory Conti teaches English at the University of Perugia and is a regular contributor to Raritan. His most recent translations are Seven Poems by Elisa Biagini and The Fault Line by Paolo Rumiz (Rizzoli USA, 2015).
Résumé
From legend to history — the myths surrounding the world’s favourite dish, debunked
