What is Pasta?

What is Pasta?
Pasta is a generic term used in reference to the whole range of products commonly known as spaghetti, macaroni, and noodles. Italians, who are the largest consumers of pasta products in the world, call this product ‘pasta alimentare’.

Production and consumption of the various pasta products, which number approximately 150 in the United States , including spaghetti and macaroni; short cut products such as elbows, shells, and noodles; and such specialty products as bow ties, rigatoni, lasagna, etc.

In the CFR (U.S Code of Federal Regulations) macaroni products are defined as a class of food, each of which is prepared by drying units of dough from semolina, durum flour, farina, flour or any combination of two or more of these, with water and with or without one or more of optional ingredients specified in the CFR.

Italy is generally regarded as the home of pasta products. They appear to have been first developed in Sicily and later in Japan. Certainly Italy is the country which pasta products are most readily identified. Pasta products, as we know them, were first made in Italy over 800 years ago. In the fifteenth century, Italians learned how to make noodles from the Germans, who had previously learned the process in their travels to Asia. In Germany, this product is called Nudeln, and it is still the more popular type of pasta consumed in that country.
What is Pasta?