The Myths Surrounding the World’s Favorite Dish, Debunked!
Did Marco Polo really bring pasta from China—or is that just a culinary legend?
How did Naples’ humble “maccheroni” evolve into the global icon we now know as spaghetti?
And is spaghetti with tomato sauce truly Italian?
In this witty and insightful exploration, renowned food historian Massimo Montanari uncovers the surprising and complex history of Italy’s most iconic dish. From the migration of wheat and tomatoes to the cultural exchanges between East, West, and the Arab world, Montanari traces how this simple combination became a symbol of Italian identity.
Spaghetti with tomato sauce may seem timeless and inevitable—but its story is anything but. It took nearly two thousand years, and countless unexpected encounters across continents, to bring this beloved dish to the center of Italian cuisine.
A Short History of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce reveals how a single plate of food tells a global tale of chance, adaptation, and delicious invention.
“Montanari traces the unstoppable rise of what would become the most famous dish in the whole world.”
Robinson/La Repubblica“A learned and entertaining volume.”
Il Giornale
“Al dente”: this untranslatable expression (indeed, the English version is identical to the Italian, literally “to the tooth”) evokes in a synthetic fashion an essential element of Italian gastronomic culture, pasta, and at the same time, the proper way to cook it: not too long, in order to keep it firm to the bite.
Nevertheless, medieval and Renaissance cookbooks recommended cooking pasta a long time, for a number of minutes that today would leave us aghast. “These macaroni want to boil for the space of two hours,” Maestro Martino prescribes in his recipe for Sicilian macaroni.
The indication was apparently susceptible to rather significant variations, with another manuscript of the same book reducing the cooking time to “one hour gently gently” and still another takes it down to “half an hour” adding, however, that in principle “all pasta wants to be well cooked.” Bartolomeo Scappi, in the 1500s, also suggests prolonged cooking.
For his “Romanesque macaroni dish” he advises pre-cooking in boiling water for half an hour, then “taste them to see if they are tender, and if not, keep them at a boil until they are well cooked.” That’s not all. “At this point, the pasta is put onto a plate, arranged on three layers each topped with grated cheese, sugar, and cinnamon, then the whole thing is covered with an overturned plate and left to stew on the hot coals, or in the oven, for another half hour.”
Physical Info: 5.31 x 0.83 x 8.27 inches | 128 Pages | Hardback
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