Though Italy comes to mind when we think of pasta, the earliest pasta was prepared in China. It is a popular belief that Marco Polo (1254-1324) introduced pasta to Italy when he returned from the Orient. While many researchers agree that Marco Polo may have increased the popularity of noodles, they note that noodles were being eaten by Arabs and Indians at least half a century before Marco Polo visited the Orient. Trade between Arab lands and Italy was fairly common in the early Middle Ages, and many commentators note that pasta may have been introduced to Italy through trade as early as the eleventh century.

Indian noodles were called sevika and the Arabic word for noodle is rishta; both words translate roughly as thread. In the same vein, the Italian word for noodles, spago, means string. Stemming from the word paste, pasta is made from a starchy...