A Short History of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce

August 23, 2021
Food historian Montanari (Let the Meatballs Rest) “reflect on the meaning of roots, identities, and origins” in this illuminating examination of one of the world’s most famous culinary pairings. Readers should be warned—this is not light reading, but rather a rigorous exploration of prevalent beliefs, whether accurate or not, connected to the ingredients that make up the revered coupling of spaghetti and tomato sauce. Many will be surprised to learn that pasta was invented in the Middle East around 10,000–12,000 years ago as a derivation of unleavened bread cut into flattened strips similar to tagliatelle, and that Marco Polo did not introduce pasta to Italy on a return voyage from China, as is commonly thought by pasta lovers. Montanari offers, in essence, a deconstruction of the meal, starting with the practice of drying and cooking pasta and moving on to the advent of macaroni and the addition of cheese. He also examines the evolution of cooking “al dente” (a departure from the two-hour boil noodles endured in medieval times); the shift from eating pasta with white cheese sauce to red sauce with tomato in the 17th century; and the emergence of the “Mediterranean diet,” which popularized the use of olive oil. While this scholarly treatise may be better suited for those with big appetites for knowledge, it’s full of delicious details.

October 1, 2021
The ubiquity today of spaghetti with tomato sauce belies this relatively recent appearance in the world of gastronomy. It wasn't until the early nineteenth century that Neapolitans made it a dish of choice. Pasta had graced the Italian table for centuries before that, and was not, as the corrected record now shows, imported from China by Marco Polo. Cultural historian Montanari (Italian Identity in the Kitchen, 2013) has deconstructed pasta's history and come up with some surprising data. In their earliest days, noodles were boiled for hours, yielding a product that would horrify today's gourmets, with their insistence on perfectly chewy, al dente pasta. Initially, pasta was served with a lot of cheese--sheep's milk in particular--till Po Valley cheesemakers discovered how to produce aged cheeses from cows' milk. Tomatoes arrived early from South America, but it took many decades for them to achieve culinary status. Chili peppers, another gift from the West, also contributed to what has become today's much-lauded Mediterranean diet. Montanari's research will delight readers and provide plenty of fodder for dinner-table discussion.

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