Most of the earliest forms of pasta that we consider to be the core of the Italian repertoire – such as vermicelli and spaghetti – were probably first developed by Arabs and didn’t appear in Italy until the ninth or 10th centuries. The first mention of boiled pasta wasn’t until the fifth century A.D., in the Jerusalem Talmud. It probably didn’t have the toothsome quality – known as “al dente” – associated with Italian pasta today, and would have been similar to unleavened matzo bread with sauce on it. The earliest pasta shape was a simple sheet, which was treated more like bread dough. Since they were dehydrated and sturdy, they were an ideal food for people traveling across the Middle East and northern Africa. These tiny forms of pasta kept well in hot climates and could be cooked using very little fuel, which was scarce in Arab dominions. Triticum, or durum, wheat needed to make a sturdy dry pasta is Middle Eastern in origin, so it is likely that Arabs and others in the Middle East were producing and eating the earliest modern forms of dry pasta – as little balls like acini de pepe and couscous – before they became common in Italy. The real answer is probably neither of them. Some say the Chinese others say the Italians. More mystery surrounds which culture invented the first cut and dried noodles. In fact, the earliest forms of pasta excavated in archaeological digs were made from millet, a grain that has been in use in East Asia much longer than rice or wheat.Įarly Chinese cultures mostly grew soft wheat that was not well suited to making dried pastas, but made good fresh pasta. While it may seem like fighting words to an Italian, the first pasta that modern eaters would recognize probably came from China and could have been made out of a variety of starchy foods besides wheat, including rice, mung beans, tapioca and sweet potatoes. For comparison, bread dates back to around 8000 B.C. Pasta is one of the oldest processed foods, dating back several thousand years to around 1100 B.C. While the history of this new shape has been heavily documented, including in a five-part podcast, the story behind how pasta got its shape is a bit murkier. Cascatelli means ‘waterfall’ in Italian, hence its shape. To me, a food historian and former bistro chef, it looks like the love child of two lesser-known pastas, creste di galle and mafaldine. Pashman developed the shape to hold a lot of sauce and be easily stabbed with a fork. Food blogger Dan Pashman apparently thought we could use one more.Įnter cascatelli – which means “waterfall” in Italian – the world’s newest pasta shape. There are at least 350 shapes of pasta you can buy. There are hundreds of varying shapes of pasta.

Cool pasta shapes