GUYS I WROTE AN ESSAY

"Pasta- A Labor of Love"

I was nine years old on a warm evening in Rome. I was kicking my feet under the blue and white plaid tablecloth. Eventually, a neat plate is set in front of me and my mother. The dish is pasta tossed in a warm tomato sauce with pancetta. The pasta looks strange to me; too small and long to be penne, but too thick to be spaghetti- mainly because of its lengthy hole! The straw-like pasta was identified to me as bucatini and that was enough information to satisfy my curiosity. Being the child I was, I started eating, or rather drinking pasta; sucking the sauce out of the noodles with glee. 

Fast forward to a time where I am older than I was when I had sampled bucatini. Now I am making pasta with tomato sauce for a special event, most likely Christmas Eve, with my mom and Nana. Nana takes the lead, instructing my every move: making sure I watch the sauteed onions, that I shave enough nutmeg into the pot, that I don't splatter the tomatoes onto my front as I cautiously tip them into the pan (they weren't fresh, sorry). 

These are only two of the moments from my childhood where not only was I eating or making pasta, but it brought me closer to my family. In Rome, I was able to share food with my mom, which was an act of reciprocity that made me feel cared for. When I was making sauce with my relatives, I was able to immerse myself in a family tradition. My family is just one of many who feels a sense of pride when making pasta. The dish is almost synonymous with Italian culture for many as it comes in all shapes and sizes, prepared with all types of sauces and fillings. But what is genuinely Italian pasta? And does pasta even have Italian roots? In elementary school, I was told about the legend of Marco Polo, a man single handedly capable of bringing Chinese pastas to Italy. In this paper, I trace the origins of pasta (spoiler alert- noodles and pasta have separate origins), and observe what makes a cultural dish a national specialty- is origin the only factor? The story of pasta will be looked at from a global historical perspective, as well as in a family setting to provide examples that will help define the factors that make a dish cultural or "authentic". Simultaneously, this paper will take this process and reverse it on its head, proving that pasta is in fact a cultural dish, based on academically-identified checkpoints that prove authenticity; necessity in everyday life of a society, the dish holding weight as a form of knowledge which exceeds physical necessities, and finally evidence that the culture in question has spent time making the food original regardless of the origin of the initial identity of the dish. 

It would be helpful to take a look at the origins of pasta before analyzing the dish as cultural heritage, in order to clear up some confusion about its history. Despite the narrative that pasta is a dish with origins from China, as the introduction hints at, this is merely a narrative. Marco Polo did not bring pasta to Italy. Rather, the dish has evidence of its initial forms existing in the Mediterranean. Serventi and Sabban, two scholars took a look at historical documents to determine that the origins of pasta originated in the Middle East and then from there traveled up to Southern Italy. The initial form of pasta was in fact of Jewish origin, the two authors suggest, stemming from uncooked dough that was broken into little pieces with the fingers (Vermicelli) and then cooked fresh or occasionally dried for portability (Serventi & Sabban 2002, pg. 23). Vermicelli was also popular at the time in Arabian cultures in the Middle East as well, cooked like porridge with actually sweet ingredients rather than savory at times (Kummer 1986). The one common trait between the legend of Marco Polo and this very different story right here is that pasta came to Italy in the Middle Ages, where in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, pasta began to take shape (literally!) as what is known today and was introduced to the area only briefly before these dishes emerged (Serventi & Sabban 2002, pg. 14). Their research goes on to suggest that it would even take until the fifteenth century to identify pasta dishes as their own category, rather than individual dishes which don't make up a whole. Despite pasta being relatively recent in Italy, they agree that pasta also took its time to produce on a separate trajectory than noodles, which have their own separate origins (Serventi & Sabban 2002, Chapter One). Interestingly enough, there is a theory as to why people mistake Marco Polo for having brought pasta back to Italy. Kummer writes that Polo referred to the noodles he brought from China as "lasagne", a term which was beginning to refer to dishes today called as pasta- perhaps as a way to compare the two dishes (Kummer 1986). 

For a food to belong to a certain culture, there needs to be substantial evidence of that food filling a necessary niche in everyday life whether that is physically and/or symbolically. In Fortier's work interviewing the Raute for instance, the Raute people culturally have a connection with hunting monkeys as it determines their living patterns, but it also provides sustenance which is meeting a physical need to survive (Fortier Week 2 Lecture ). Based on observation, it is fair to assume that pasta has a physical presence in the everyday lives of Italians. In fact, pasta has become so much a popular commodity that it's expanded out of Italian state lines to the rest of the world. In the U.S, pasta was popularized with the help of Italian immigrants, and it has become a popular dish that is served on many plates regardless of social class. Pasta too is universally shared in Italy*. Below is a statistical breakdown of how many people based on a randomized survey consume pasta. 

Courtesy of Statista, URL: https://www.statista.com/chart/19776/gcs-pasta-consumption/ (Fig.1)

From here on out, it is assumed that pasta holds a physical presence in everyday society. It therefore especially holds a role of meeting a physical need of reaching satiety for most of society. The origins of its popularity go way back to the seventeenth however. According to the author Brombert, "The change [for accepting pasta as an everyday dish] was noted in Naples, where, under Spanish rule, problems of production and the inefficiency of the public market caused the progressive decline of resources that had been the principal ingredients of the popular diet- meats and vegetables, primarily cabbage. This provoked a change in the dietary balance with a heavy shift to the side of carbohydrates" (Brombert 2013, pg. 42). Eventually after this period of necessity occurred, people learned to love pasta and Naples and it began to be eaten as an affordable food. So although the history of pasta seems more recent than otherwise assumed, pasta holds a needs-based history in Italy, and it still holds necessity in Italy today. 

However, necessity alone doesn't become the only factor in determining the significance of pasta for Italian culture. After all, its love is prevalent all around the world, with Italy as the epicenter of the pasta fan club. With this love comes transferable knowledge passed from generation to generation. Weiss considers the passage of time significant for cultural foods (Weiss 2011). In the Castellano family where the author descends from, dishes have been passed down from generation to generation for example. An interview between the author and her relative took place in the kitchen. Cooking lessons teach younger generations how to cook their traditional foods in a home setting. During this interaction between the author and grandmother, she learned how to make garlic and seafood pasta. This recipe does not hold specific historical origin, but rather comes from the experience of growing up in an Italian household. The recipe below translated by the author is shown below. (Fig. 2)

The recipe below stays true to ingredients that pair well with pasta which are popular in Italian (American) cuisine; garlic, olive oil, and seafood. These ingredients have been used for generations and have been taught to be used in recipes to feed families. Feeding a family is in itself a cultural experience. While learning how to cook these recipes, there is information to be transferred from teacher to learner about how to live in the society they grow up in. When questioning her grandmother, the author learned about the significance of honoring one's family through food. Anecdotes from her grandmother's family paint images of bonding over the table; food is a symbol of love and to cook for one's family is a proper way to communicate care to family members regardless of the dish (however, cooking a traditional dish from the family is a sign of respect for people of older generations). In other words, learning to make pasta or dishes with pasta holds lots of traditional knowledge of how to prepare food for a family; this involves feeding members of the family well to make sure they feel full physically and mentally. The passing down of knowledge is a way that the society can live on and this makes the recipes cultural territory; in this case, pasta has been proved to be cultural territory for Italians when the dishes represent more than just a meal. 

Finally, for a dish to correspond with the culture that claims it, the people of that culture need to ensure that there is a level of originality in their rendition of the dish. Weiss states that authenticity is "dynamic" in nature; that there needs to be room for a cultural dish to vary from individual to individual (Weiss 2011). They stated that by authenticity being "dynamic", "This suggests that every dish makes sense in several different manners, variously perceived within personal, regional, national, and global contexts" (Weiss, 2011). By authenticity relying on innovation, there is room for cultural expression to be translated into each dish. In the case of pasta, the process of boiling unleavened dough was not original; however Italian pasta has a variety of interpretations: filled, dried, rolled, long and thin, short and thick, or even blended with potato! 

A Diagram of Pasta Shapes

 (URL:https://www.finedininglovers.com/sites/g/files/xknfdk626/files/the-italian-taste--pasta_5536996b99b98_w1500_0.jpg) 

(Fig. 3)

The diagram above shows the results that originality and the freedom of expression through food has on that item. The pastas each have names that correspond to the images they evoke. For instance, orecchiette, although not here, has been associated with the image of an ear. Farfalle are associated with butterflies. Each shape has a certain purpose; this can be based on preference but it also has to do with the pasta becoming a vehicle for the type of sauce being used or in certain cases even fillings. According to Serventi and Sabban, "al dente" pasta or pasta that is just barely cooked has even become a way of eating pasta set forth by Italy. (Serventi and Sabban 2002, pg. 228). The originality the society puts on foods proves the attention that country puts towards their meal. The time spent on these recipes, which as discussed above in the previous paragraph not only teaches younger generations how to behave in a certain culture, but they also give people the time to imbue these foods into their everyday lives which gives them a say on how these foods are represented. Kummer claims that although much of Italy adopted pasta as a cultural dish, pasta became produced most in Naples, "Durum wheat was suited to the soil and weather of Sicily and Campania, the region around Naples, and so the pasta industry developed there, in the eighteenth century, and led Italian production into this century" (Kummer 1986). Because of this, Naples created the pasta that people are most familiar with. While these pastas are original Italian pastas, it is an important segway into discussing what are not authentic uses of pasta. Macaroni and Cheese for instance, which according to Kummer has origins in England, would not be an authentic Italian dish seeing as the food does not have the meaning that Italy has attributed to the dish (Kummer 1986). However, that is not to say that Macaroni and Cheese isn't a dish that has cultural significance for England as it is an instance of using pasta and creating a dish that holds their views on good food or practices of eating. Besides foods being adopted from other cultures (without original interpretation of course), foods lose originality when standardized or taken from the cultural context of the food. This is usually the case when a food is mass produced by another country like in the case of prepared macaroni and cheese for example. In their article, Wiess stresses that authentic foods can not be separated from the cultural learning, invention, and values that are assigned to foods, "The 'authenticity' is not in the [food], but in its place…" (Weiss 2011). This academic statement supports the notion that a food cannot be claimed as authentic if it copies a recipe from a culture but doesn't involve the cultural rituals that go into the making of these foods in members' homes. Like an artifact, pasta doesn't have any significance without the context it is found in. You can't make Italian pasta without understanding how it is taught, why it is served, what the pasta symbolizes. 

Pasta is a cultural food with a background that originated from another dish of unleavened bread pulled apart by hand. This food was not culturally Italian. The renditions of pasta which came from these inspirations from mediterranean trade are of Italian heritage. Finding what is a cultural food and what is not can be a slippery slope when so many foods have origins from different parts of the globe. What is important to remember is that foods that are taught with cultural knowledge and innovated generation by generation are foods that are cultural. It is important to draw the distinction between these foods and mass-produced foods that ignore unintentionally or sometimes even intentionally the context that these foods come in, because of the time and invention people put into the foods that shaped them, their past, and their future. 

Works Cited: 

Kummer, Cory, "Pasta",  July 1986 Issue, The Atlantic, 1986, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1986/07/pasta/306226/ 

MONTANARI, MASSIMO, and Beth Archer Brombert. “MACARONI-EATERS: HOW a NATIONAL STEREOTYPE AROSE.” In Italian Identity in the Kitchen, or Food and the Nation, 41–46. Columbia University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/mont16084.11.

Serventi, Silvano, Françoise Sabban, and Antony Shugaar. “The Taste for Pasta.” In Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food, 227–70. Columbia University Press, 2002. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/serv12442.15.

Weiss, Allen S. “Authenticity.” Gastronomica 11, no. 4 (2011): 74–77. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2012.11.4.74.