pasta

pasta

a “paste” of flour and water formed into noodles of various shapes and sizes

    Pasta, Italy’s signature food, dates back to a Greek legend.  The muse Talia inspired a man named Macareo to construct a metal container with many tiny holes from which long strings of dough emerged as if by magic. He immediately cooked these maccheroni and served them to some hungry poets. Talia entrusted the secret of this wondrous device to the siren Partenope, who founded the city of Naples in the sixth or seventh century B.C.

    Based on more scientific archaeological research, we know that the early Romans subsisted on a diet of barley porridge and a pasta-like dough mixture called langanum or lagane, which may have been the earliest form of a lasagna noodle.   After disappearing during the Dark Ages, pasta reemerged in an early travelogue written around 1154. 

    An Arabian geographer described the production and drying of thin noodles he called itriyya (an Arabic word that Italians translated into vermicelli, or little worms) in a village in Sicily.  Sailors probably transported this durable food to Genoa and Pisa, where maccheroni and vermicelli appear in personal wills and inventories. These documents clearly refute what Italian culinary custodians consider a preposterous claim—that pasta didn’t arrive in Italy until 1295, when Marco Polo introduced noodles from China.

    Pasta became so popular in Naples that its citizens, once called mangiafoglie (leaf-eaters) for the green vegetables in their diet, gained the nickname of mangiamaccheroni (macaroni-eaters). Street vendors called maccaronari cooked spaghetti on rustic stoves and sold them, seasoned only with grated cheese, by the handful. 

    Engravings and photographs from the late eighteenth century show young Neapolitans dangling the long strands high and dropping il ghiotto cibo—which translates as both the appetizing and the greedy food—into their open mouths.  “The difference between the king and me is that the king eats as much spaghetti as he likes,” an old Neapolitan saying goes, “while I eat as much as I’ve got.”

Sayings and Expressions

“Butta la pasta!” -- one of the phrases you’re most likely to hear as Italians head home for lunch and call on their telefonini to say “throw in the pasta!”

prendersi uno spaghetto -- to have a fright

fare una spaghettata  -– to eat spaghetti with friends (in compagnia)

la spaghettata di mezzanotte –- midnight pasta, shared by friends after a movie, play or party on the beach 

aver le mani in pasta -– to have your hands in pasta, to be in the midst of doing something

essere una buona pasta –- to be a good egg

uomo di pasta frolla -– morally weak man

If you live in the San Francisco area, please join us for a celebration (with wine and delicious appetizers) of Italian food and language:

Thursday, July 30, 6:00 p.m.
A.G. Ferrari Foods
468 Castro Street

San Francisco, CA  
http://www.agferrari.com/
415-255-6590

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