History of Pasta

HELLO 4000+ Years of Pasta Enjoyment

Pasta’s origins stretch back thousands of years. Food historians, however, continue to debate about who created the very first batch around 3000 B.C.
Was it the Mesopotamians – long credited with being the first cultivators of grain? Or was it the Chinese – deft inventors of foodstuffs and gunpowder? We may never know for sure.

What we do know is – from its earliest days – pasta was the versatile choice for cooks on the go. Literally. Ships’ logs from before the eleventh century reveal that dried pasta fed crews as they traveled from port to port. As sailors shared their meals with locals, pasta’s delicious influence spread around the globe.

Italians transformed the humble dish into a cultural touchstone. The early Etruscans depicted pasta-making near Rome as early as 400 BC. Pasta craftsmanship truly took hold when the first guild was formed in Florence around 1337. By the early 1800s, dried pasta for everyday consumers was being shipped from three Italian ports.

Global demand for pasta was rising. One reason: Tomatoes from the Americas had begun to arrive in Europe. Some smart cook combined tomatoes with pasta for the first time around 1838. And the rest, dare we say, is history.

Today pasta is eaten – happily and regularly – by people on every continent, from every economic group, for every occasion.

And rightly so! Pasta is affordable, nutritious, versatile and delicious. Pasta nourishes people body and soul. That’s why we love pasta!