In international restaurants of Italian haute cuisine as well as in the popular markets of southern Italy, pasta is eaten in all sauces. From spaghetti with tomatoes to ravioli, including accompaniments to fish or local cheese, this food has found its way onto the plates of gourmets in several countries, where it has become its own.
Suffice to say that in the four corners of the world, pasta has been combined with local specificities and artisanal uses, over the centuries. Later, they will be popular with the food industry. Although Italy undoubtedly remains the capital, they have not always been part of the country’s culinary habits.
Indeed, many historical accounts trace its previous use in the Arab and Muslim regions around the Mediterranean. Older practices show basic processes, such as in ancient Rome, where preparations were similar to the less elaborate version of lasagna. Before that, a first way of making pasta based on wheat found its source in the Greek empire, in Persia, or even based on rice (noodles) in China.
This last connection remains highly contested. Food historian and member of the Italian Academy of Cuisine, Anna Maria Pellegrino points out to the South China Morning Post that “noodles are one thing, pasta is quite another”.
Dried pasta, an Arab know-how marginalized in the Arab region
References suggest the emergence of this use in Mesopotamia, with the first cereal crops around 8000 BC. JC. For better preservation, wheat was ground into flour, then used with water in different preparations, which would have given rise to pasta, among other dishes.
If these stories still spark debate, the historical versions remain more unanimous on the Arab origins of dried pasta, those most used today and which were first exported to Italy. In the edition dedicated to “Plants, dishes and words; dialogues with André-Georges Haudricourt” of the journal Médiévales (n°16-17, 1989), the Italian historian Massimo Montanari made this assertion, adding that the use was introduced in Sicily, between the 9th and 12th centuries.
The researcher refers in particular to the 12th century geographer Charif Al-Idrisi, who testified to the “existence of a real Sicilian pasta industry”, called itrya, or “itrija”. About thirty kilometers from Palermo, the town of Trebia was even the hub.
In Sicily, where the native scholar of Sebta developed his founding work of modern geography, the economy of dried pasta capitalized on the dynamics experienced by maritime trade during the Arab presence on the island, in addition to the first usages of the Arabs who “hung the noodles on clotheslines to dry them and thus be able to keep them longer”.
Medieval writings indicate that from there, the use migrated to La Botte, to Calabria “and to other Muslim and Christian countries”. The vocabulary then used to define dried pasta itself testifies to Arab traditions. According to Massimo Montanari, “the term tria, derived from Arabic, designated pasta”.
This name “is found in Tacuina sanitatis and in certain culinary treatises from the late Middle Ages”. We find it in the “Cookery Book” (Libro délia cucina), a Tuscan collection from the 14th century which describes the “tria” in Genoa, or even in Naples, in the manuscript “Liber de coquina” dated from the same period.
Known in the 12th century for its merchant marine activities, Genoa quickly became the crossing point for cargoes of pasta, as evidenced by numerous commercial contracts from the notary Giovanni Scriba. From there, large quantities are exported “to different destinations inside and outside the Mediterranean.” In this context, Italian Liguria becomes another capital of dried pasta production. The 13th century will then see the extension of this activity to Pisa, then Puglia until the 15th century.
But further north, regions less influenced by Arab and Muslim cultures or those that were not former Arab-Norman areas of Italy have been slower to adopt dried pasta as an integral part of the terroir. Thus, Emilia and Lombardy, or even the Countryside and Naples opted much later for this food, admitted to the Neapolitan region in the 17th century. Still, since the 13th century, several variations have existed, between basic spaghetti and vermicelli (fedelini), macaroni, ravioli or gnocchi.
It is also clear from historical accounts that in the first centuries of pasta’s use in Italy, it was primarily a “popular” food. It would have been consumed mainly by sailors, or in circumstances of work and mobility requiring stocks of foodstuffs that could be kept for long periods of time. In this regard, Massimo Montanari mentions that “‘bourgeois’ cookbooks give only few recipes” during this period and that “until the 14th century, their use undoubtedly remained occasional.”
Other accounts call pasta “the dish of choice at the banquets of the Renaissance aristocracy.” Pope’s cook in the 16th century, Bartolomeo Scappi imagined a banquet “composed of boiled chicken accompanied by ravioli stuffed with boiled pork belly stuffing”, all accompanied by “parmesan, fresh cheese, sugar, ‘herbs, spices and raisins’.
A food made popular by maritime trade
With the expansion of the agricultural vegetable garden in Sicily and then throughout Italy, alongside the emergence of dried pasta, several other foods were introduced to the island. Fruits and vegetables have enriched already established traditions and recipes. Inspired by Arab preparations that combine sweet and savory, pasta in the southern region was served with raisins, nuts or even pistachio. They were accompanied by sauces developed and elaborated over the centuries.
Brought back from America, the tomato will revolutionize culinary habits in the 18th century, from which the sauce made from this fruit-vegetable will be added to pasta dishes. Maritime activities are also experiencing a turning point. Trade and travel between the two distant shores of the Atlantic will make known the uses of different regions, giving them a global dimension.
In the 19th century, dried pasta was more widely accepted and its artisans became more and more numerous. Industrial developments also brought their influence, hence manufacturing would be regulated during the first half of the 20th century, particularly in Italy and France. At the same time, ancient traditions of drying pasta continued in North Africa.
In Morocco and Tunisia, preparations accompany chicken sauces. In the homes, women often passed on this know-how, which would have proven vital for local populations, especially under the Protectorate. With food rations made compulsory, barter practices would have made it possible to exchange quantities made at home for other foodstuffs.
