In many sources, one can read that Pasta owes his appearance in Italy to the famous Venetian traveler who met her in the Celestial Empire. We checked if it was true.

Here's what the website of the Center for Italian Culture tells us "Bellingva": “Many people think that the Italians invented Spaghetti. However, this is not entirely true! The Italian traveler Marco Polo in 1295 brought dry and well -stored long noodles from China. In his "Book of Miracles", he describes it as one of the eastern outskirts. The Italians liked this dish so much that an active creative activity immediately began to invent more and more types of such noodles. There is no doubt that a huge variety of pasta is an Italian invention, but flour products of this type were known long before Marco Polo among many peoples of Asia and Africa. ”

Similar information can be read in such publications as "The latest book of facts", "Culinary Encyclopedia", "Sobtor KGB: Notes of a scout and journalist", magazine "Knowledge is power", and in many other sources.

Pasta is one of the symbols of Italy. There are today Dozens of varieties This culinary product wearing intricate Italian names, which foreigners are very easy to confuse - how to distinguish Cavatappi from Cavatelli? However, this does not mean that Paste has always been in Italy. On the other hand, the mention of Marco Polo in such stories can immediately cause distrust. After all, the Venetian - Personality semi -legendary, he became the hero of the set theoriesThe authors of which claim that Marco Polo was never in China, and came up with his travel stories based on popular legends. Nevertheless, modern research Showthat the Venetian merchant most likely honestly set out what he saw himself and what he was told about in his long trips. The question is how true some of the information he heard was. In any case, the story with pasta requires separate attention.

It should be noted that Marco Polo himself did not write or published anything. “The Book of the Wonders of the World” (also known as the “Book on the Variousness of the World”) about the travels of the Venetian east in 1276-1295 is based on his stories that the writer Rusticello (Rustichiano) from Pisa, neighboring Marco Polo in the Genoese prison, heard and recorded. "Travels" consist of four parts. The first describes the territories of the Middle East and Central Asia, the second - China and court of Khan Khubilai. The third part speaks of the coastal countries: Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and the east coast of Africa. The fourth describes some wars between the Mongols and their northern neighbors. But even these retelling did not reach us in its original form - about 150 editions of the epoch -making book are known.

And if you try to find in the Chinese part of the "Book of Wonders of the World" information about products that at least a little resembling pasta, then nothing will come of it. But in another book, which describes the Sumatran state of Fansur (now the territory of Indonesia), It is said: “There is neither wheat nor other breads; People eat rice and milk; They have that wood [palm] wine that I have already talked about. Here is another outlandish to be mentioned: in this kingdom there is flour from trees. They get it like that: there are special, large and thick trees here, and they are full of flour. Their bark is thin, and inside there is one flour; From it they make a delicious dough. Many times we tried it and ate it. ”

This is a quote from an earlier manuscript recorded in Old French - the language of interethnic communication in Southern Europe in those years. In the later manuscript, which was published in 1556 by the Venetian Giovanni Ramuzio, there are also addition: “If you remove the first bark, thin, you reach the wood with a thickness of three inches, and the core is all filled with flour, like Carvolo (the fruit of a tree that gives a powdery substance. - approx. Ed.). The trees are so thick that only two people can be wrapped around them. Residents put that flour in the tubs filled with water and interfere with the water with a stick; Then bran and other sewage pop up to the surface, and pure flour drops to the bottom. Then they pour water, and pure flour is taken and made from it cookies and various kinds of pies. Mr. Marco ate them many times and brought them to Venice; They look like barley bread in appearance and taste. ”

The plant in question is known as a saga palm. Group, obtained from its trunk, is quite popular in Asia and is used to prepare a variety of dishes. Here are just “cookies and various kinds of pies”, which are reported in Manuscript Ramuzio, are not very similar to pasta. Where did the mention of the paste come from? It turns out if you look into italized publications Memoirs Marco Polo, the word Pasta will meet us repeatedly. The fact is that initially in Italian it is Designated thick porridge, as well as dough. Therefore, the above mention of flour from which they “make a delicious dough” is an example of a correct translation. But a dish called “Paste” by Marco Polo in early manuscripts, according to scientists, does not mention, although in a number of English translations of the 19th century this word is transmitted unchanged - PASTA.

In addition, if even Marco Polo mentioned the paste as a dish (some sources also bring The word lagana is an old designation of the prototype either lazagi or Macaron Taglutella), then this would mean that he was already familiar with these dishes and their names in Italy. Then the version of the pasta of the Chinese paste looks all the more absurd.

Indeed, there is a lot of evidence of the prevalence of pasta in Apennines long before the return of Marco Polo from Asia. In the Etruscan tomb of the 4th century BC. e. were Found Devices that are strikingly resembling those used to make pasta. Macarone -like product Described In the culinary book of Appicus - a Roman cook who lived in the 1st century BC. e. under the emperor of Tiberia. The famous Arab traveler of the XII century al-Yircy, talking about his visit to Italy, mentioned The ITRIIA dish ("strip"), which today is used to designate spaghetti in the Sicilian dialect.

Legal documents came to us. According to one paper, dated August 2, 1244, the Bergam doctor Rujero di Brook is obliged on the basis of an act drawn up by a notary Gianino de Bredneo, to cure the patient from the disease of the oral cavity. The patient, in turn, undertakes not to use certain products, among which a “smooth paste” is mentioned. Also, we were drawn up on February 4, 1279 in Genoa will A certain Ponzio Baston, who, among other things, left the heirs a basket full of pasta (obviously dried). Thus, Marco Polo could not introduce the inhabitants of the Apennin to the paste or her analogues - they have long been popular in his homeland. Although this does not cancel the fact that the analogue of the pasta could be known in China even before the Etruscans, as shown excavations.

Illustration from the XIV treatise, depicting two stages of the manufacture of pasta

As for the reasons for the spread of the legend about Marco Polo, which brings pasta to Europe, then, according to one of the theories, the American magazine The Macaroni Journal is partly to blame. In October number (p. 32) in 1929, the story of a sailor from the ship Marco Polo named Spaghetti was printed in 1929, who spied how the inhabitants of the China coast prepare an outlandish dish for him. The story was absolutely invented, but it seems to have left her mark in the information field.