Pasta has been a staple in the Canadian diet for many years, and you probably think that you know everything about the delicious meal, right? Well, the truth is that there are a lot of things you probably don’t know about pasta, including the country where it was first eaten.
We hunted for the top five most fascinating facts about pasta that we are sure you will love. This is going to enhance your knowledge about the food and make you more confident the next time you order for it in your favorite laval pasta restaurant.
1. Pasta was first made in China, not Italy
Most of us believe that pasta is Italian food, right? While pasta is synonymous with Italy, the first recorded reports of people eating the noodles came from China around 5,000 BC. Legend reports that the famous explorer named Marco Polo introduced the noodles to Italy after exploring China in the 12th century.
History shows that pre-Roman Etruscan civilization started making their own pasta in 500 BC. The dough was made by crushing the grain with small rocks and mixing it with water. Nonetheless, that was 4500 years after China recorded its first incident of people preparing and eating pasta.
2. Tomato sauce came later
A lot of people had been enjoying pasta for thousands of years before anyone thought of adding sauce to it. This is because tomatoes aren’t native to Europe and it was not until 1519 when the first tomato was introduced to the continent by Cortez. The explorer brought tomatoes to Europe from Mexico.
After that, tomatoes and pasta grew into one of the perfect combinations in parts of Italy, and it didn’t take long before meatballs were thrown into the mix.
3. Pasta means different things in different languages
While the term “pasta” may seem international at this point, that is not the case. The shocking truth is that there are differences in meaning for the term depending on the language you are using.
For instance, in Greek, pasta means “barely porride” while in Latin, the same word means “dough pastry cake.”
In Italian, the word means “paste” which is pretty logical since that is how it is prepared. Pasta is basically a paste of water, wheat flour, and other additional ingredients such as eggs and olive oil.
4. People were once fooled into thinking pasta grew on trees
On April 1, 1957, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) aired a well-planned spoof documentary about a special type of spaghetti that grew on trees in Switzerland. The documentary even showed farmers “harvesting” spaghetti from trees.
The humorous video was met with a lot of confusion and excitement. A portion of viewers started wondering where they could purchase their own spaghetti bush. Apparently, this was a hoax and the first incident of April 1st fool’s day.
5. There are many shapes of pasta
How many shapes and sizes of pasta do you think exist? 50? 100? 200?
There are 600 different types of pasta produced in different parts of the world. This is according to the International Pasta Organization, which was formed to help increase awareness and overall consumption of pasta.