An Italian dinner is one of the most romantic there is. Candlelight, a shared noodle of fettuccine, and ‘That’s Amore’ playing gently in the background – the setting is perfect for falling in love. You need to impress your date with your smarts – looks aren’t everything – and here’s how: pasta trivia. Whichever noodle you’re using, we’ve got the quick history below:
- The earliest recorded pasta in European history dates back to the 1270s when a soldier in the northern Italian city of Genoa was reported to own a basket of “macaroni”.
- Pasta was allegedly brought back from China by Marco Polo in the 13th Century, and the Asian “noodle” – probably made with sago – was quickly adapted to suit European grains and recipes.
- The word pasta has Latin origins, and means “dough pastry cake”.
- Tomatoes didn’t arrive in Europe until 1519 when the infamous Cortez returned from Mexico. This means Italian pasta existed for two centuries before penne all’arrabbiata, pasta puttanesca, or the classic pasta marinara.
- For a long time, it was common to eat sweet pasta, flavoured with sugar or fruits.
- Thomas Jefferson introduced pasta to America in 1789.
- There are now more than 600 shapes of pasta in the world.
- Every year Italians eat about 600 million kilometres of spaghetti — enough to wrap around Earth 15,000 times.
