Origin of Pasta - Gianluca Re Fraschini "Per una Buona, Sana Cucina"

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Do you know..

Do you know about the origin of pasta?

Whenever I look at a fountain of flour and water I can but think of what has been written and known about the origings of Pasta; some archaeologists had believed to recognize in some old Etruscan wall paintings primitive methods and tools used to prepare some sort of Lasagne and Tagliatelle.
Inexplicably though, during the following centuries no other findings witenessed to the evolution, diffusion, making and consumption of this popular nutriment.

During the Roman-Greek Age Pasta was not known yet: the first acknowledgement of its usage dates back to the first century A.D., in China. There Pasta was already produced and traded at the time of the Sung Dinasty between the X and XIII centuries.
The legend according to which Marco Polo was the first to inport the use of Past is hardly probable because when he came back from China in 1295, Pasta had already been known in Italy. Evidence of this can be found in some lines of Jacopo da Todi as well as in some "inventories" of bourgeois mansions in Genoa written in the half of the XIII century describing some jars for the preservation of Pasta.
According to some historians, Pasta started to be well-known and widespread in our country through the Arab invasion. An evidence of this event is a fine recipe-book published in Baghdag in 1226 which described a dough of flour and water, cut into thin stripes, stoved in a meat ragout, chick-peas and lentils.
The Arab invasion of Sicily brought about new cooking usages in the isle. In the following centuries the art of Pasta-making - performed in the kitchens of both bourgeois mansions and popular homes - led to the introduction of the classical shape of the so-called "Maccheroni".