The origins of pasta.

Pasta was familiar in the Mediterranean area in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and also was mentioned in Genovese documents. The first traces of dry pasta in Europe came from Sicily, where documents of the twelfth century tell of something like a factory of dry pasta, localized in the area of Palermo. From this site the pasta was then exported to other regions of southern Italy. Genovese sailors were among the most active traders within the Mediterranean. It is not surprising that in the thirteenth century Genova became trader, and then fabricator, of dry pasta, spreading it to many other countries which led to this pasta gaining the name Genovese. The oldest maccheroni recipes found are from Sicily: maccheroni with eggplant (eggplant was introduced by the Arabs in Sicily around the year 1000 from India) and maccheroni with sardines. Both these delicious dishes are still present today in Sicilian cooking. Other establishments appeared through southern Italy, and the pasta that today is called spaghetti (meaning strings) or vermicelli (meaning little worms). By then, dried pasta from Italy was known in Provence and in England. The short pasta with the tube shape would be named maccheroni, apparently from the Latin word maccare, meaning to mash. The turning point was in Naples in the 1600s when pasta had become more affordable especially after the invention of the mechanical press. Dry pasta quickly became the peoples food, to the point that Neapolitans were commonly called mangiamaccheroni (macaroni eaters). In 1785, Naples had 280 pasta shops. In the 1800s, pasta was sold by street vendors, who cooked it over charcoal fire; and it was eaten on the spot with bare hands. The pasta was sold with no dressing, or with merely a bit of grated sheep cheese, until the early 1800s, when the first tomato sauces appeared. Southern Italy had hundreds of artisan pasta makers, but it was in 1824 in northern Italy, close to Genova, that the first industrial pasta factory was established by the Agnese family; a few years later the Buitoni family founded another pasta factory.

After the Italian unification in 1862, pasta spread all over the country, and traveled with Italian immigrants to the United States. Before long, pasta was eaten all around the world, and the rest is history! A Brief History of Pizza Although youd find many types of pitas or pizzas around the Mediterranean, it is in Naples that pizza in the form we know it today first emerged, after the tomato appeared on the table in the 1700s. Naples has many records of pizza since around the year 1000; the first mentions call these flat breads and later they are referred to as
picea.

Naples is also where the first pizzerias opened up, with brick woodburning oven, covered with lava stones from the mount Vesuvius. The chefs of those times ignored pizza because was considered a poor peoples food, but the new combination with the tomato, when it entered the kitchen around the 1770s, must have raised some curiosity, even in the royal palace Ferdinand I Bourbon, King of Naples, loved the simple food o f the
people. He liked it so much that he wanted pizza to be included in the menu at the court.

A famous episode extended the popularity of pizza beyond the limits of the city of Naples. It was 1889, and Margherita, queen of Italy, was visiting the city. She was told about pizza and wanted to taste it. A famous cook by the name of Don Raffaele, helped by his wife Donna Rosa, was invited to cook pizza at the royal palace. They prepared three pizzas, typical of that time: one with cheese and basil; one with garlic, oil, and tomato; and one with mozzarella, basil, and tomato. The queen, impressed by the colors of the last pizza, which resembled the national flag, preferred that one. Since then this pizza is known as Pizza Margherita. At the beginning of the last century, with Italian immigrants, the first pizzerias appeared also in Australia, where pizza has become a mass phenomenon.
Yet, even today the best pizza is found in Naples, where it is rigorously made with buffalo mozzarella.