Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food

Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History

by Silvano Serventi, Françoise Sabban

Ranging from the imperial palaces of ancient China and the bakeries of fourteenth-century Genoa and Naples all the way to the restaurant kitchens of today, Pasta tells a story that will forever change the way you look at your next plate of vermicelli. Pasta has become a ubiquitous food, present in regional diets around the world and available in a host of shapes, sizes, textures, and tastes. Yet, although it has become a mass-produced commodity, it remains uniquely adaptable to innumerable recipes and individual creativity. "Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food" shows that this enormously popular food has resulted from of a lengthy process of cultural construction and widely diverse knowledge, skills, and techniques.

Many myths are intertwined with the history of pasta, particularly the idea that Marco Polo brought pasta back from China and introduced it to Europe. That story, concocted in the early twentieth century by the trade magazine "Macaroni Journal," is just one of many fictions umasked here. The true homelands of pasta have been China and Italy. Each gave rise to different but complementary culinary traditions that have spread throughout the world. From China has come pasta made with soft wheat flour, often served in broth with fresh vegetables, finely sliced meat, or chunks of fish or shellfish. "Pastasciutta," the Italian style of pasta, is generally made with durum wheat semolina and presented in thick, tomato-based sauces. The history of these traditions, told here in fascinating detail, is interwoven with the legacies of expanding and contracting empires, the growth of mercantilist guilds and mass industrialization, and the rise of food as an art form.

Whether you are interested in the origins of lasagna, the strange genesis of the Chinese pasta bing or the mystique of the most magnificent pasta of all, the "timballo," this is the book for you. So dig in

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, History, Culinary

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Lupo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro molto interessante e ben scritto. La storia della pasta in Italia e in Cina, le due patrie di questo alimento, con qualche puntatina fuori da queste due regioni, scritta in modo preciso e accattivante. Da quello che si capisce, il primo capitolo, quello delle origini mediterranee della lavorazione della pasta è un pò speculativo, ma sicuramente molto interessante.
Nel complesso una lettura piacevole che informa bene e senza equivoci, sulla storia di uno degli elementi caratterizzanti la cultura italiana e, parallelamente, cinese.

[Walt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very detailed historical analysis of ... pasta!

[Holly]

Saw it referenced on The Splendid Table

[Anthony · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like a giant plate of pasta, I couldn't finish this book. Too dry and bland in the beginning.