Short History of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce

THE MYTHS SURROUNDING THE WORLD’S FAVOURITE DISH, DEBUNKEDDid Marco Polo bring pasta back from China, or is that a myth? How did the Neapolitan “macharoni” turn into the ubiquitous spaghetti?Is it even an Italian dish? Hundreds of shapes and thousands of recipes give expression to the culture and products of the country’s regions. But spaghetti with tomato sauce remains Italy’s identity dish par excellence. Massimo Montanari goes in search of the dish’s true origins, tracing its history along the multiple, intricate routes taken by its raw ingredients to merge and become a distinctive element of culinary tradition.It took almost two thousand years and input from the Far East, the Arabic world, and the Americas, for the dish to take centre stage. Its development is the result of chance encounters, unplanned exchanges, and unpredictable intersections. As we dig in search of spaghetti’s origins, we find its strands wrap right around the world.“Learned and entertaining.”–Il Giornale

“When I tell you that I would travel far for a good ragu, you’ll appreciate why I also devoured Massimo Montanari’s A Short History of Spaghetti With Tomato Sauce, an anatomy of a culture on a plate, and delicious with it.", “Disentangling the serpentine strands of the story can be complicated, like working your way through a mound of spaghetti, but Montanari provides a focused overview. Although compact, the book is stuffed with rich ideas.”, "Food historian Montanari reflect[s] on the meaning of roots, identities, and origins in this illuminating examination of one of the world’s most famous culinary pairings. While this scholarly treatise may be better suited for those with big appetites for knowledge, it’s full of delicious details.", "A very entertaining account of the cultural significance and history of the Italian dish... a fun, knowledgeable and well written book.", “Cultural historian Montanari has deconstructed pasta’s history and come up with some surprising data.... [His] research will delight readers and provide plenty of fodder for dinner-table discussion.”

Massimo Montanari, currently Professor of Medieval History at Bologna University, is a scholar in Food Studies. He has been invited as visiting professor to a number of leading universities in Europe, Japan, the United States, Mexico and Canada, and is one of the founders of the international review Food & History. Gregory Conti teaches English at the University of Perugia and is a regular contributor to Raritan. His most recent translations are Seven Poems by Elisa Biagini and The Fault Line by Paolo Rumiz (Rizzoli USA, 2015).

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