Rumors have to start somewhere. One of the oddest is from China where some people claim spaghetti originated. My guess is that this story got started with the oriental adventures of Italian explorer, Marco Polo. His expedition arrived in China in 1274 and he spent the next 17 years there, hobnobbing with Kublai Khan (whose grandaddy was Gengis Kahn) and enjoying the hospitality of that expansive court and the fruits of its cuisine.
In the book he wrote after returning to his home in Venice, entitled “Description of the World” he notes that he ate rice noodle dishes in China. That might be where the legend started that Polo brought pasta to the Italians and thus that the Chinese must have been the inventors of spaghetti
But Not So Fast!
The esteemed Arab geographer, Mohamed al-Idrisi described a pasta which he was served in Sicily in 1154, made from durum wheat which sounds a whole lot like linguine. This was 138 years before Marco Polo was even born, so we can be pretty sure that al-Idrisi’s spaghetti was not actually an invention of the Chinese.
Personally, I think we ought to put it on the record once and for all that the Italians invented spaghetti and not the Chinese. Besides, the Chinese already have a lot of stuff they invented like crab Rangoon, mushu pork, and won ton soup so I think they ought to just back off and give the Italians credit for inventing spaghetti. I doubt that the Chinese have the ability to whip up a good spaghetti alla puttanesca, for example or a spaghetti con pollo e funghi and if you wanted a half-decent spaghetti pomodoro e basilica you’d be slap out of luck anywhere in China except maybe in Hong Kong’s Little Italy.
So who was Mohammed al-Idrisi ?
I don’t know about you but nobody in the teaching profession ever mentioned this fellow to me in all those years spent in algebra multiplying letters of the alphabet and mindlessly memorizing the birthdays of murderous rulers. Turns out that old Idrisi was not an insignificant fellow. For one thing he provided the world with the strong possibility that spaghetti first evolved in Sicily sometime prior to 1139 AD. Idrisi wrote a book entitled “The Excursion of One Who is Eager to Traverse the Regions of the World”.
This book surveyed the known geography of that time and included scientific revelations, among them that the world was a sphere and that Arabs had introduced durum wheat into Sicily from which they made and exported the stuff resembling “spago” or “cords” which became “spaghetti”.
This means that people in Italy were eating spaghetti without tomato sauce for at least 350 years before Spanish explorers brought tomatoes back from Mexico. The Italians were quick to see the benefits of joining the two together. The combination has been a feature of Southern Italian cuisine for over 500 years and is prepared and loved around the world, except maybe in China.
Few people today are aware that some of our best-loved foods originated in the Americas long before Columbus and the Conquistadors destroyed the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Incas who had been growing them for centuries. Among these are potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, beans, pecans, corn, avocados and sweet potatoes. Even vanilla and chocolate! And tobacco!
Not to pick on China but a lot of people think hot chili peppers originated there. Or maybe in Thailand or maybe the Philippines. This is because a lot of oriental dishes are liberally seasoned with hot chili peppers whose ancestor chilies ALL came exclusively from the Americas and nowhere else. I have a little jar of crushed red pepper flakes, for example, whose origin reads the label, is India!
But for the people in Southern Italy tomatoes became a much-loved gift from Spain. There they were called tomate, from the Aztec tomatl. It was the famous Spanish explorer, Hernan Cortez, who discovered tomatoes growing in Montezuma’s garden in 1519. Very shortly afterwards Cortez killed Montezuma along with thousands of his Aztec people and then stole their gold and conquered Mexico for Spain. Not the kind of guy you really want to have over for dinner. But the Spaniards did introduce the rest of the world to those great foods even if they weren’t so nice about it.
Spaghetti alla putanesca, by the way, translates in English to “prostitute’s spaghetti” or “whore’s spaghetti” (puttana meaning prostitute) but it’s a very popular dish and dear to the heart of many picky pasta aficionados. It’s also a bit off-track since it demands several ingredients you normally don’t find in spaghetti, like capers and anchovies.
But I have a plan for you which is not putanesca and which I unceremoniously made up many years ago and which most people tell me is worth going back for seconds. Here it is:
You Can do This:
(Spaghetti with Meat Sauce)
Chop one tennis ball sized onion and
Two stalks celery and
Two cloves garlic and
One bell pepper (color optional) and
One large, seeded jalapeno chile and
One quarter bunch parsley then
Fry this in olive oil for 5-6 minutes and set aside in a bowl then
Fry one pound ground beef or pork or a mix of both for 5 minutes and then
Add the cooked vegetables back into the meat plus
One small can tomato paste
One small can diced tomatoes and
One tablespoon of chicken base paste, (“Better Than Bouillion”) one teaspoon of sugar and two glasses of water and
A lot of black pepper and then …
Simmer all this on low heat for about an hour, adding a little more water if needed. Serve the thickened meat sauce over whatever pasta you like with a small handful of Parmesan cheese. Maybe some red pepper flakes.
It’s really not complicated!
Good spaghetti is whatever you want to put into it or leave out of it and if you like shrimp or clams or Italian sausages or red wine reductions throw ‘em in. I’ve enjoyed spaghetti with just button mushrooms and onions in a light brown sauce that you can easily make with chicken or pork base, water, a little flour, butter and a few drops of brown gravy sauce. In other words, I cheat.
My dad returned from Italy after U.S. Army service in WWII with a love of Italian food. It made him nostalgic to smell the aromas of fresh Parmesan and oregano and basil and sometimes on rainy Sundays he enjoyed getting back in the kitchen and whipping up a good, thick meat sauce while he sipped whiskey to bolster his inspiration. He liked to add pecans, for example, even peanuts. Usually Tabasco. “Spaghetti,” he would say, “is what you make it.” Maybe the whiskey added some charm.
Well, I don’t know about the Chinese but I think old Marco should have gone to Sicily if he wanted spaghetti. I’m going to make my own version tonight and raise a glass of Chianti to the intrepid Mr. Polo. Wish you were here.