Unraveling the History of Pasta and Miantiao 面条: The Unique yet Parallel Journey of Two Cultural Staples
Pasta and Noodles: A Shared Culinary Tradition Spanning Continents
When introducing oneself as Italian in China, a curious response will sometimes be uttered: “Italy is the China of Europe.” What might two nations so different in size, culture, and language have in common? Seeing the confusion furrow your eyebrows, your Chinese counterpart will explain that just like China, Italy has an incredibly long history, places heavy importance on family, and greatly values the quality, history, and culture of their national foods.
The similarity between foods such as Italian pasta and Chinese noodles is not lost even to outsiders. In 1929, the American magazine Macaroni Journal made such a connection by wrongly claiming that Marco Polo had brought pasta to Italy after his trip to China in the late 13th century. Similarities between the two are also mirrored in both countries’ languages: Chinese noodles (miantiao 面条) are referred to as “spaghetti Cinesi” in Italian, while Italian pasta is called “Italian mian” (yidali mian 意大利面) in Chinese. Though pasta and miantiao evolved independently of each other, they curiously share a number of parallels beyond their shape and ingredients. Primarily, the history behind their changing terminology, consumption, and production process are strikingly similar.
The Origins of Two Globally Loved Foods: From Makar to Pasta, From Bing to Miantiao
Figure 1: Many types of Italian pasta are short and wide. The importance of each shape lies in the different ways they hold the sauce.
Figure 2: Chinese noodles have a relatively long and thin shape, similar to spaghetti. Unlike pasta, which is almost exclusively made with wheat, Chinese noodles can be made with rice, legumes, tubers, ect.
Broadly speaking, pasta is “made from just semolina, farina or wheat flour, or a mixture of these with other ingredients, brought together with water, milk or egg” (Shelke 10). The ingredients used to make Chinese noodles are even more varied, including “flours of legumes, tubers, rootstalks and cereals other than wheat,” such as rice (Shelke 100). Noodles made of rice and other non-wheat substances are usually referred to as fen 粉 rather than mian 面, but both fall under the category of miantiao 面条 (“noodles”), as can be seen in Figure 2. While Chinese noodles are primarily spaghetti-like in shape in that they are long and thin, pasta includes a significantly higher number of short and “wide” shapes, many of which are hollow in the middle (like penne and rigatoni) and some of which are not (like orecchiette and gnocchi). Additionally, pastas with fillings, such as ravioli, are still considered pastas, while Chinese dumplings such as jiaozi 饺子 are not considered mian nor fen, though the ingredients and methods used to make the wrappings are similar in many ways to those of noodles. Despite such differences, the dishes considered ancestral to pasta and noodles– though called by many different names throughout history– are remarkably similar.
The earliest record of pasta-like foods came from Greece, where dishes such as “makar,” meaning “sacramental food,” and “laganon,” flat strips of dough made of flour and water, can be traced back to the 1st millennium BC. The modern-day Italian terms “maccheroni” and “lasagne” most likely come from these dishes. The way in which such dishes were introduced to the Italian peninsula is less clear. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Greeks expanded into South Italy (indeed the epicenter of pasta-making and consumption for much of early Italian history), possibly introducing such foods to those living in the modern-day regions of Sicily, Calabria, Puglia, and more. Other sources point to the interactions between the Greeks and the Romans as the latter sought to expand their empire westward. As early as the 1st century BC, the Roman poet Horace mentioned a pasta-like dish in his book Satires, where he states “then I return home to my plate full of leeks and chickpeas and lasagna” (Shelke 17). Yet another possibility lies in the fact that pasta-making tools very similar to the ones still used in modern times have been found in the tomb of an Etruscan individual dating back to the 4th century BC. The Etruscans were a group that lived in the Italian peninsula until they were subjugated by the Romans in the 4th century BC. Very little is known about them, but the presence of such pasta-making tools points to the possibility of pre-Roman contact between groups living in modern-day Greece and Italy, or even the possibility of an ancestor to pasta which developed independently within the peninsula.
Pasta was called by many names throughout Italy. Marco Polo still referred to it as lasagna nearly 1300 years after Horace, the Neapolitans call it maccheroni, and Sicilians sometimes still say “tria,” a word with Arabic roots stemming from the Arab colonization of South Italy in the 9th century AD. From the 16th to 19th centuries, pasta was nationally known as vermicelli. Where, then, did the name “pasta” come from? At its simplest, “pasta” literally means “paste, dough” and was thus used to refer to any “paste or dough made from flour of any kind mixed with water, whether for porridge, gruel, pancakes or bread, or the types of pasta now regarded as specifically Italian dishes” (Knechtges 234). Pasta then fell under the category of foods called “paste alimentari,” nutritional pastes/doughs, which is still how pasta is referred to in formal documents.
The recognized ancestor of Chinese (wheat) noodles, bing 饼, also encompassed an incredibly wide (and very similar) range of food products. Though in modern-day China bing specifically refers to a flat or round cake usually made with wheat flour and water as its base ingredients, it initially meant “all wheat-based dishes with a defined shape, as well as becoming the general term for all cereal-based preparations or even any foods that could take on an identifiable shape” (Serventi 275). Thus, miantiao 面条, mantou 馒头, baozi 包子, jiaozi 饺子 and other wheat-based dishes were all considered a type of bing. Documentation of bing goes back to the Han Dynasty (3rd century BC-3rd century AD), appearing in Mozi 墨子, a work of the Mohist School of Philosophy.
Sixth century AD intellectual Yan Shigu 颜师古 commented on the Jijiupian 急就篇, a 1st century BC Chinese character primer, defining bing as a “mixture…made of mian (wheat) flour and water and then steamed” (Serventi 278). Yan’s definition points to the fact that bing still encompassed the same broad range of foods as it had dynasties prior, though steaming was not the only method of cooking bing– deep frying, stir frying, and boiling methods were also employed. Interestingly, the most common preparation of Italian pasta was also to “fry or bake the dough and to consume it dry or in a soup” (Shelke 21). Fried pasta was the norm well into the 16th century, pointing to another similarity between pasta and bing (and later miantiao).
Mian 面 comes from the Chinese word for wheat flour, mian fen 面粉. Noodles were called miantiao 面条 in Northern China, which was known precisely for such dishes. It wasn’t until the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 CE), characterized by Mongol rule and expansion, that wheat miantiao spread to other parts of China, taking on regional characteristics and becoming a separate entity from bing. Thus, while pasta spread through Italy from the south, mian was introduced throughout China from the north.
The Rich Consumers of a Cheap Food: Who Ate and Who Made Pasta and Noodles?
Though pasta and noodles have evolved into everyday food staples for Italians and Chinese people, for much of history they were consumed by the wealthy. A large reason for this stems from the labor-intensive preparation of such dishes, which required much grinding, kneading, stretching, cutting, and for Italian pasta, drying (a defining characteristic of Chinese noodles was/is their freshness– unlike pasta, they were rarely dried). In China’s case, the staple crop for centuries prior to the Han had been millet and rice, not wheat, meaning that the majority of commoners still relied on the former two. Throughout the Han Dynasty, more wheat crops were domesticated, the process of flour milling became widespread, and people took on professions as bing merchants. The presence of merchant-artisans (such as food-stall owners) was an important development for the introduction of pasta and noodles to the working classes.
The bing merchant, despite his contribution to satisfying the tastes of government officials, was looked down upon in historical recordings as a figure “chained to his food stall and entirely caught up in the lust for money, however small the sums” (Serventi 285). According to historical texts, both imperial and governmental figures alike visited bing stalls despite having their own entourage of chefs. Their love for bing was so great that it was written about as a vice of gluttony, especially because bing was not a food staple yet but a snack, meaning that its consumption was seen as an indulgence. Bing merchants, already at the bottom of China’s Confucian hierarchy, were especially hated due to the gluttony which their relatively cheap products awoke even in learned men. As bing “entered the menu as a basic element [and not a snack]...it finally became a staple food, a subsistence food for those who had nothing else to eat” (Serventi 281). At that point, bing merchants still enjoyed popularity among the classes, but common people began making their own bing products as well. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the noodle industry (or that of mantou, baozi, jiaozi etc) was fully industrialized.
Figure 3: Song Emperor Huizong (r. 1100-1125) and government officials enjoying an outdoor banquet. On the table lie a number of bing products.
Neapolitan maccheronari (pasta markers) also played a central role in the dissemination of pasta to different social strata. Southern Italy enjoys a favorable climate for both the growth of durum wheat and the drying of the pasta– which was hung outside like laundry– making it the historical capital of pasta. When meat prices rose in the 17th century, pasta became significantly less expensive and proved to be an affordable option for working-class people. The growing popularity of pasta can be seen in the number of pasta shops in Naples, which quadrupled between 1700 and 1785 (Shelke 24). The Neapolitans’ love for pasta was so great that the phenomenon of mangiamaccheroni (pasta eaters) became a sort of tourist attraction. Foreigners who visited the city often painted and wrote about scenes of people of all ages lying on the side of the road eating pasta they purchased from a maccheronaro with their hands. This scene became such a phenomenon that Neapolitans offered to show tourists how they ate pasta in exchange for the tourist buying them a bowl of it. The love which Italians of all social classes fostered for pasta mirrors the attitudes of Chinese officials and commoners alike towards bing.
Figure 4: A 17th century Neapolitan mangiamaccheroni (pasta eater). Though forks were in popular use in Italy by then, working class people often used their hands to eat pasta anyway.
Conclusion
Though evolving independently of one another, Italian pasta and Chinese noodles are similar in many aspects. Both pasta and Chinese wheat noodles are made using ground wheat flour, water, and sometimes eggs. After the dough is left to rise, the paste will be stretched, sometimes by rolling it on a flat surface and sometimes by pulling it by hand or by machine. Chinese noodles can also be made by slicing each piece off of a block of dough, creating a type of noodle called dao mian 刀面, knife-noodles. Both pasta and noodles are usually eaten with a meat, fish, or vegetable-based sauce and slurped rather than cut (short Italian pasta is eaten whole; the only types that are cut are ravioli and lasagna). Most recipes for both ingredients require the pasta/noodles to be boiled before being added in the sauce, in which they are then stir-fried or left to simmer.
Beyond the ingredients, shapes, and tastes that give rise to similarities between pasta and noodles, the history behind the changing terminology, consumption, and production of both food staples is also remarkably similar. The ancestor of pasta, paste alimentari, and that of miantiao, bing 饼, both encompassed a wide range of dishes that were grouped together based on the two key ingredients of wheat flour and water, and the characteristic of taking on specific shapes. Both paste alimentari and bing were initially primarily consumed by wealthier people due to the labor-intensive process of making such dishes, and in China’s case, the relative novelty of wheat cultivation compared to the established practice of millet and rice cultivation. Lastly, pasta and bing artisan-merchants alike– a figure best embodied by food-stall owners– played a significant role in introducing the production and consumption of such products to the working classes. The subsequent mastery of pasta and noodles by their respective societies have allowed Italy and China to be rightfully considered gourmet countries.
Bibliography
Knechtges, David R. “Gradually Entering the Realm of Delight: Food and Drink in Early Medieval China.” American Oriental Society, vol. 117, no. 2, 1997, pp. 229-239, https://www.jstor.org/stable/605487.
Serventi, Silvano, et al. “China: Pasta’s Other Homeland.” Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food. Columbia University Press, 2012, pp. 271-344.
Shelke, Kantha. Pasta and Noodles: A Global History. Reaktion Books, 2016.
Zhang, Na, and Guansheng Ma. “Noodles, traditionally and today.” Journal of Ethnic Foods, vol. 3, no. 3, 2016, pp. 209–212, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jef.2016.08.003.
Referenced Photos
Figure 1: Canaan, Grace. Real Simple. https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/popular-ingredients/types-of-pasta-noodles
Figure 2: From douyin 抖音. No further information provided.
Figure 3: Emperor Huizong of Song. Literary Gathering. 1100–1125 AD. National Palace Museum, Taiwan.
Figure 4: Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (real name unknown). A Peasant Boy Eating Pasta. 1630-50. Web Gallery of Art. https://www.wga.hu/html_m/m/master/annuncia/eating.html