September 10, 2024 • 33 mins
Pasta is amazing. But where does the concept come from? In part one of this week's two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max delve into the origin of a simple series of ingredients -- and discover there's a lot more to the story.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it from one of our
favorite audio chefs, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Early on my woohoo.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
You never early, It's never. It's never too early or
too late for a woohoo. It's always precisely on time.
Like a wizard who a lord of the Max don't
mess with the balance of the universe.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Question that all I do is mess with the balance
of the universe.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
This reminds me of This reminds me of a recent
episode where I like, hey, you guys are stepping on
the intro. But I love the I love the energy.
Also love hanging out with the Ridiculous Historian crew. That's
mister Noel Brown, the man the myth legend right there.
Basta for pasta and I have been bullied. I've got
(01:19):
a I've got a dumb joke for you guys that
I actually got a little bit roasted for on Twitter.
Do you want to hear it?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Yeah? Okay, well ratio.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Yeah. It's when people making fun of you get more
likes than things.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Like that's not the good, but it also it does
imply a certain amount of power.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
You please beg.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Racia groans for saying, uh, hey, every for a moment
of truth and accountability. I said, hey everyone, I've been
doing this thing. Is during the pandemic. I think I've
been doing this thing where I'm just going through all
my old noodles and putting whatever I have in them.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And I'm not sure if that makes me a good chef.
Maybe I have in pasta syndrome.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Oh yeah, that's it's it's it's a it's a twist
on an old trustee.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Yeah, it's good now that joke. Drum dot Wave have
got some youth threat there.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
It's funny how sometimes people will just text you and
say the name of a popular gift dot gift. You know,
you can just say the name of the sound cu
instead of actually putting it in. Quick question, you guys,
how do you feel about mixing pastas? It seems borderline sacrilege,
doesn't it. But it's all the same stuff, it's just
different shapes.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I'm okay with it. But I'm what they would call
philosophically optimistic nihilist.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Here you go.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I mean I'm I'm down with being sacrilege and most things.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Okay, what about what I would?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I would avoid it typically, But to your point, Ben,
there is it comes a time in every home chef's
life where you have a little bit of a couple
of different pastas and the bottom of the bag, and
what are you gonna do? Just like have fi, I
have noodles, you gotta just combine those suckers and make
a salad, a pasta salad.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Well, now you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And some of the shapes are similar right or close enough.
They're kissing cousins where you could say, hey, is it
that we're gonna get in trouble for this one? Is
it that terrible for me to have some elbow macaroni
and some maybe bow tie or some rigatoni?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Or it's like a pasta trail mix kind of situation.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Although I would perhaps turn my nose up ever so
slightly and mixing long noodle type pastas with small bite
sized pasta, that's just seems like it.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Would open up a black hole in time space.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
That seems gonna be just really messy. And to know
your point about you got to use the pasta. To
quote Ben who likes to quote Checkers.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
You gotta eat you son of a gun.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
That's back.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
But Ben, you have been fascinating with this pasta thing
for a hot minute, now, to the point where you
invited us all out on a field trip that sadly
didn't happen to an exhibit on pasta and one of
our fair museums here in Lanta. We talked about it,
I believe on the last episode of Ridiculous History.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
The Moda, right, is the name of the museum.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The Museum of Design in Atlantantah. Yeah, so Museum of
Design Atlanta. They had this. They had this exhibit about
not the history of pasta, which, as we'll see, is
a little bit of a bag of Badger's or a
bowl of Messi spaghetti.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Murky like pasta water.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
There it is perfect. Yes, this is why we hang
out man. The exhibit was entirely about the history of
pasta design. That was That was it, which is sort
of like going to an exhibit about the history of
tarot card printing see specifications.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I have to ask, though, I mean, there are like
branded pasta designs that fall well outside of the cannon
of you know, historical pasta shapes. I think we all
are looking at like Kraft macaroni and cheese, for example,
the weird little amorphous noodle shapes that they claim are
ninja turtles.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
I don't see it. Do you see it?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
I I welcome people's creativity.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
If that was a ninja turtle, it would be saying
kill me.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You know, I don't think it's a top tier don't
teenage turtle.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
It's the same with cereal shapes. I just I never
see it, but it's fun to you know, imagine if.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
If it is indeed a ninja turtle, those shapes, then
they are the Picasso of the ninja turtles.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
A lot of Pikasso figures. I feel like, if they
were alive, would be saying kill. But we love fasta.
It's amazing. We gotta we gotta start this way. So
first off, folks, we're figuring out whether or not the
murky origins of pasta the It's gonna be a one
part episode or two part episode. We love food history,
So do you Nola? I must ask, and I know
(06:08):
this can be a difficult question. No gotcha journalism here.
If you had to choose a favorite pasta shape, what
would it be?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
It's a real Sophie's choice here, right posing. Ben.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
You know, I'll tell you I really like tagli oh,
the kind of long flat fat boys, you know. But
I also really like Asian I think it's northern Chinese
cuisine that does the like never ending, unbroken giant flat
fat noodle.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
I really like that.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, the hand pulled the knife cut is also good.
If you've ever been to a place here in Atlanta
called Landsu Ramen, there's a window into the kitchen where
you can see these wizards stretching this dough and like
stretching between their fingers and magically pulling these noodles. And
every time they spread their hands apart accordion style, another.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Set of noodles forms. It's really really cool. But so
Ta Telly.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I really like those Asian flat never ending noodles. And
I really like bucatini because of the grippiness of it,
which we're gonna get into as well in terms of
the utility of pasta shapes. How about you, Ben oh Man. Well,
like picking a favorite child, isn't it We.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Talk about this soft air a disturbingly a frequent amount
of times. It's it's funny, folks, when you if you
heard nol Max and myself talking and just shooting the breeze,
you would be surprised by how passionate we are about
very specific things. And for a while now I've been
(07:48):
on record being a little bit militant about Bukatini. How However,
I mean, it's all the surface area, right, and it's
all the sauce for me, I'm a sauce boy. But
the said thank you, But the I would also I
would also have a tough time. I love you did
the Sophie's choice thing, because I feel like if I'm
(08:10):
picking a long shape, like a noodle shape, then I'm
ignoring the entirely different horizon of you know, the bow
tie or the shorter cylindrical ideations.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
It's funny because even the cylindrical ones are almost a
category under themselves. Yes, yeah, And then you've got like
big noodle cylinders that are for like pasta bakes, you know,
or or layered noodle situations like lasagna, And I don't know.
With the Oasis being in the news lately, I keep
seeing this amazing clip of Liam Gallagher at a concert
where he goes.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Fancy someome Lazaangna. Yeah, I'm triggered by that in a
good way. Good trip.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I've been watching so many Oasis, so many Oasis performances
and listening to albums because what wonderwall bin Uh, Well,
maybe I'm not.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
You don't really want to that's a different song. So
you and I are going to live forever through pasta.
It's not as bad for you as you think too.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
By the way, I believe some studies recently come out
saying that carbs are not the death knell that they've
been made out to be.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Sure, sure, but look study schmiddies. Though, Am I right right?
And I like that you're saying it that way. Ignore,
I mean, treat those things with a grain of salt.
Shout out to the book Salt by Mark Kurlanski, because
if you notice, over time, uh, there is always going
to be some scare report and then some countervailing report
(09:40):
before we move into this Max. Millions of people are
asking you right now, pasta got a favorite.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I hate to say it because you've already said it,
Ben Bucatini.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
I love it because it's like this is the superior speaking.
You get the pasta on all the sides. I feel
like I've been looking for it, but I feel like
there's a like version of Pukatini or difference one that's
like a really fat Bukatini. I've been googling fat Bukatini
and just getting bukatini.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
So what kind of that?
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Yeahs interesting ones, especially because I'm doing it on my
work laptop.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So if if I'm a.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
I will make sure to find someone to finish this
episode if I can let go of my search results
from today.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Bro uh dola and I have the search history equivalent
of face tattoos.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
I think of getting a face tattoo of my search history.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
I I remember talking to uh some people over my
brother's slate, like Trevory Young and such, and like be like,
I don't know if I should be like searcher than
this thing. I guess next we work on true crime,
all right, there are no rules.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
First off, there's something about the phrase fat bukatini that
feels dangerously euphemistic.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Uh yeah, well that's what I was right. Oh, but
I like bow ties too. I like just the humble
It's good. It's a fun shape. And I also really
like the spirally ones sometimes I'll go a little ham
and I'll get the tri colored ones.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Yeah, what do they call those spiral ones?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Brigatoni is the hollow spirally ones, But I'm thinking about
the pure, just spiral fusiliini.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Rottini is a rottini as well. Oh man, So this
is this is the thing, folks. Whether we're talking ravioli,
a nice spaghett yes you heard cat me do the
hand thing, or you know, a lemonade caper bowl of
the humble bow tie. Almost everyone has a go to
(11:42):
favorite dish that is kind of pasta esque. Pasta is
right now one of the world's most accessible foods, and
nearly every country has some version of this as a staple.
In our exploration today, we're asking where this culinary miracle
(12:03):
came from. And as you'll see, we're going to hit
you to a ridiculous secret about pasta. No one really
knows its origin story.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Yeah, it's that parallel thinking again.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Where it's just it comes from such a commonly available
staple crop in the form of wheat, and various ways
of processing that stuff, pounding it, you know whatever.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Like it wasn't the most novel idea to.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Just kind of combine that with water, make it into
a paste, roll it into a fun shape, and boil it.
You know, people figure that stuff out pretty quick. It's like,
we don't know the first person that ate the mushroom
that didn't kill you, but it probably was multiple people,
you know, many, many, hundreds, thousands of.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
People across this wide world of sports that we call earth.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, there we go. It was the second person in
that mushroom field who survived and said, all right.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
The one guy dropped that, I mean, and then they
checked that one off the list or crossed it rather right,
and we'll skip that one.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Oh. Also, we should say, in a slightly serious note,
if you are fortunate enough to live near a wild
forested area wherein you can forage for things like mushrooms,
be very very careful. There's a great app which we'll
mention at the end because I need to I need
to check my phone to find it. There's a great
(13:32):
app that can help you identify mushrooms. If you are
not mycologists, then don't eat random mushrooms.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And I'll tell you by the way. You know what
I love.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I love a mushroom pasta. I love oh yeah, pasta
dish with a creamy sauce and just sh tons of mushrooms.
So that's one of my favorite flavors and textures in
the world. It does seem to be divisive. Some people
either seem to love or hate mushrooms in culinary you
know settings.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, sometimes it's just a texture thing.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Some people that hate the texture of mushrooms, You can
grind it up into a sauce and they love it
because it has this wonderful lumami, but it just skips
the texture part of it.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
So that is something to think about.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
If your kids say they hate mushrooms or they hate vegetables,
try just you know, immersion blending the heck out of that,
and then they'll they'll get those nutrients and those lovely flavors.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Like all those folks who say I hate fresh tomatoes
but I love it.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
I used to hate them, dude, us so bad.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
I may have told the story on the pod before,
but like my mom loved them so much and wanted
me to love them, to the point where she laid
out a platter of tomatoes at the dinner table, forced
me to eat them, wouldn't let me leave, and I
ate one and I threw up all over the table
because something about a fresh tomato. Then it just hit
me in the most horrible way. And I still don't
(14:53):
I won't eat a tomato. I'll eat it on a sandwich,
but I won't just bite into a fresh tomato.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
But boy does it hit different when you make it
into a sauce. Yes.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
And as we're diving in here, let's get our forks
around what this pasta stuff actually is.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Get it around our forks.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I guess, twist it you know, yes, yeah, yeah, oh yeah,
I just described a weird fork's I'd.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Be like a psychic like matrix type action, like get
that fork around. You know you made around the pasta of.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
All about it, bro, But we know that pasta is
a group term, right for a panoply of products that
have a few commonalities. They're made from unleavened dough created
with wheat or some other type of flour, which can
be controversial because people have divisive opinions about pasta. And
(15:42):
then this, as you said, nol, this is combined with
water and sometimes eggs, and then it's molded into all
sorts of shapes and boiled in general.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
And while it does occupy the same wrung on the
famed food pyramid as bread. The thing that separates is
that lack of a rising agent, you know, that's where
the unleavened part comes from. Forgive me if this is
stating the obvious, but just thought i'd mentioned.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I think we should always state.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
The kind of our thing ridiculous system.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
The use of Durham wheat in the world of pasta
in particular is usually described as the main differentiating factor
between your pastas and your other noodle esque dishes. But
for a lot of people, a lot of hungry people,
especially pasta and noodles often used interchangeably. It's kind of
(16:35):
like how all mazes are puzzles, but not all puzzles
are mazes.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
That's right. It's a VN diagram type situation.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
I mean, in a lot of Asian cuisine you'll see
pasta or noodles made from rice instead of wheat. And
in a lot of you know, for example, African culture,
there's different forms, different shapes. That almost feels a little
more like a rice or a what is it arborea rice?
Stir constantly? What's that dish? Risotto? There does come another
(17:03):
Van Diagram situation, where is is it rice. Is it
pasta you know?
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Or is it rice? Like you know?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, here we go, right. We also wanted to explore
the etymology of pasta. Just pasta as a word is
astonishingly recent. I did not believe this in the beginning
when the three of us were researching for this. It
is an Italian term and the first documented use of
(17:31):
this word in this sense describing a genre of food.
It comes from eighteen twenty seven.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
Bro that's practically nineteen hundred.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
That's like last week.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I mean, that's insane. I would never have guessed that
in a million years. And I do love the way
certain Brits say it past past pasta paasta. That's well, now,
it's not sound like we're saying from Philly or something, right, Brooklyn.
But paste it does make sense because you know, again,
to go back to your description of the basis of
what pasta is, it starts out as a kind of
(18:06):
pasty dough or a doe paste, depending on your kind
of glass half fall glass, half empty philosophy.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, and we'll note a discrepancy here because as we
see the actual stuff we call pasta or noodles or
some sort of dough made from grain, water and boiled dumplings.
Even you know what I mean's.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Not a noodle, but it kind of is.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
It's kind of ravioli. Ravioli is kind of a dumpling.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
But a dumpling is also can just be sliced up
pieces of boiled dough. It doesn't have to be stuffed
with something like a you know, a shoeme, you know,
or a perogi or something like that. But then you
also have stuffed pasta. So there, Oh, it's ven diagrammy
And it is really interesting, this whole game of telephone
we play with the history of food because there's so
(18:55):
much parallel thinking, especially when it comes to food.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, people have been grinding stuff and mixing it with
water since time immemorial. That practice probably predates the written word,
if we're being absolutely honest. So when people say pasta today,
we often think of Italian dishes. Right. You could go,
for instance, somewhere in the Pacific Theater and there are
(19:20):
going to be a ton of noodle shops. But if
a place says they're selling pasta, they're usually selling Italian cuisine.
The idea, however, is still ultimately the same when it
gets to your tummy. We're alluding to an ancient, delicious practice.
And this is where we get into oh some juicy
(19:42):
legends which we will serve al dente.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Throw it at the wall. See if it's sticks there
we are.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It's a great kind of metaphor for a thing no
one has probably ever actually done.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
I think I told you though. It was on one
of the shows that we do together. I did roastpagetti. Yeah,
I just wanted to see some of us slide down.
Sadly for most of his slip yeah, okay, most of
his slip. I I honestly, I combined it with I
did case testing.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
It's so lame.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I put some spaghetti and sauce and through it at
a wall and then just regularly spaghetti.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
You were doing science, you were doing. Yeah, I got it.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I have a lot of friends growing up.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Is it though a?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I mean, is it really a decent way of checking
out whether your pasta is aldente? Seems to me like
you just pull a noodle and chomp on it. You know,
you have to give Sully your walls. We'll leave the
walls out of it. I think if you get to
the point where you're throwing food at a wall. You've
made a couple missteps as a chef already, but it
has to originate from somewhere for it to have gotten
(20:46):
even to the point where people use it as kind
of an idiom for like trying out different ideas. Yeah, sorry,
I'm getting this off track here because there's so much
to get into we can't really afford to to dilly
dally too much.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
But Ben, like you mentioned legends, pasta le legends.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yes, yeah, so it is uh, it is true that this,
like so many ancient practices, the origin story here does
descend into legend for centuries and centuries millennia, heck, millennia. Travelers, writers, cooks,
poets have all created these homages to something like pasta,
(21:31):
and it's really difficult to differentiate such a simple, brilliant
idea from its cousins. But we know a lot about
references to stuff like pasta.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Right, yeah, Horace or depending if you want to be
He's he's a leading Roman poet during the reign of Augustus.
He mentioned something in his writing is called legana anna.
I don't know, man, it seems pretty close. Which were yeah, man,
(22:05):
they were fried though they were like fine thin thinly
rolled sheets of fried dough. Atheneus Athenaeus a Pheneus of
Nocratis Nocritis I believe, also had a recipe for something
resembling leagania lagana, which he attributes to the first century.
(22:25):
These names man, Chrysippus of Taiana, Tiana. Man, that's a
cool name, Chrysippus.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah, the same thing you were talking about. This one
specifically refers to sheets of dough made of a wheat
flour and the juice of crushed lettuce.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
No, you lost me. You lost juice of crushed lettuce.
That is not how one uses lettuce properly.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Right, that's the new it to me, crush lettuce water.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yes, it's just weird. It's weird vegetable water. I don't
think there's any reason to do that. Let's just maybe
it was a water short issue.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
I don't know, who knows.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
But then you would flavor that with spices, and then
again to your point, you would fry it in some
kind of oil, usually oliver sunflower oil. If you look
at an early fifth century cookbook, you'll see another dish
called legana, and this one is layers of dough with
meat stuffed between it, So we already see the evolution
(23:25):
of your modern day microwavable Stofer's lichu for sure.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
I mean even even like a Greek Spanic copita, you know,
kind of a spinach pie. I mean it is more
of elevened dough. But there there are lots of Greek
dishes that involve thin layers of dough that kind of
resemble a pasta bake, but they're a little bit of
a different consistency.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
And they're pain to make, you know, oil are they good?
Speaker 4 (23:48):
And it is it's all about the spices. Like have
you ever had something called moussaka. That's something my mom
is a big fan of.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
It's an eggplant based kind of like casserole that is
a little eggy and also has like these really rich
kind of I think it's a clovy kind of thing,
which is when I was younger, I wasn't a huge
fan of, but have grown very fond of, you know,
in my twilight.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yearslight Come on, man. We also want to give a
shout out in advance to our pal Christopher Hasiotis, who
is of Greek descent and can actually cook some.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Of these things descended of Greek royalty. If I'm not mistaken,
I don't know. He just comes off very kingly to me.
He has a regal air. He barely does.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
In the speaking of Greece in the second century a D.
Greek physician Galen mentioned something called ittrion, a homogeneous compound
made of you guessed it, folks, flour and water. If
you go to the Talmud you'll see the attrium is
described as a kind of boiled dough common in palisine
(24:55):
from the third to the fifth centuries a D. And
then you go to the ninth tree you see men
of letters like Isho bar Ali, an Arab physician who
talks about something he calls ittria with two y's, and
he says, these are string like shapes made of simolino flower.
(25:16):
You dry them and then you cook them. So everybody's
kind of doing a dance around the concept of pasta.
They just haven't discovered the word yet.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
It really is just kind of a basic building block
of food, like a carrier or a medium of sorts.
Not to get too nerdy about synthesizers, Sorry, this is
nolal synthesizer corner. But like, the more I get into
learning about sound design and the construction of sound. It
(25:47):
all boils down, no pun intended to some very basic
fundamental building blocks of sound, and then it's all about
how you twist it up and like what filter you
put it through and how you kind of process It's
it's like the sine wave, you know, the square wave
or whatever. These are all things that more or less
exist in nature and then you kind of twist it
up and make something different out of it. That's how
(26:09):
cooking is. And this is like a basic sound wave
of cooking. To bring it back to cuisine. Yeah, I
got your back on that. Let's go one further.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
I would on the on the benz Nerdy writing corner side,
I would say you could make a similar argument with
writing and cooking, right, because the English alphabet is just
a you know, it's less than thirty letters, and people
(26:42):
have changed the course of civilization depending on the order
of which they put those letters. Right, They've added some
sauce to the basic components. Right, So there's there's a
beauty to this.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
There's a sketch, an incredible sketch on Mitchell and Webb.
Look where it's sort of making fun of Gordon Ramsey
and he's he's basically, you know, torturing this poor young
chef by making him make this dish that he just.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Doesn't have to do it. And he ultimately says, I'm
just not good at this.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Now you're better at cooking than me, and he goes,
it's just simple ingredients prepared, you know, fresh ingredients prepared,
simply goes Shakespeare is just pretty words in order, you know,
like we really.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Do get down to, like the difference between something great
and something you know, horrible or mediocre that can contain
the same components. Is ephemeral and it's really hard to
put your finger on, but it is all still kind
of made of the same stuff.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Agreed, one million percent. Nobody checked my mauth also on
that we never want to miss an opportunity to mention
Ephemeral The Fantastic Podcast by our pals Max Williams and
Alex Williams. One.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Surely there's discussion of pasta in the annals of Ephemeral.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
At least off air.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
It shouldn't go as a surprise given all of these
things we've we've mentioned thus far about this kind of
parallel thinking that people still to this very day. Uh,
It's a huge bone of contention as to where pasta
where noodles, Where this you know, culinary technology actually originated.
Was it born in China and then later brought to
(28:21):
Italy via the trade route the Silk Road, or did
it evolve independently and of course in parallel to its
grand Eastern rival, As I mentioned before, the humble rice noodle?
Dare we hazard a first guess by way of a.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Legend Marco Marco, Hello, fish out of water?
Speaker 3 (28:44):
So I forget when you get out of the pool
and running over dangerous though, guys, no running around the pool.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
No no, and no sneaking around like a Skyrim player
tried to get your stealth archer stats up.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Also speaking of debunked myths, is that they find that
it's not really true that if you eat too close
to going in the pool you cramp up. Is that
is that an urban legend that's been debunked or is
that truth to that it's oversimplified?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I I actually, oh man, nobody's ever going to see this,
but I did. I did a series of video pilots
busting myths like that where I had wherein I had
to eat a huge like foot long public sandwich and
then immediately jump in water and try to swim.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Sorry for those that don't have publics, you did say
a public sandwich, not a public sandwich was available.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Stone and finally, ain't it?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
I love it? Yeah, So that that truth. It's a
it's a little or the urban legend, as you said,
is a little oversimplified, but it is still helpful to people,
and that's why it's stuck around for a while. Similar
to the legend that the fourteenth century traveler Marco Polo
(30:05):
from Venice. What you'll hear a lot similar. It's kind
of like when people of past generations in the United
States were in grade school, they would hear that Christopher
Columbus crystal ball cologne discovered America. Ah, hold the.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Spoon, hold the macarone.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
There we go. Don't call it a comeback or do.
Because this is the end of part one of the
Murky Origins of Pasta, and we will be returning very
soon with part two.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
You sure will.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Man, what a ramp and more romping to come a
real role in the in the sauce lost sauce, not
unlike I'm scared and I need to you know, I
need help.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Where's where's an adult right, not on this show. No,
that's for sure. So we also want to, of course
give a big, big thanks to our super producer, mister
Max Williams. Max, you know this kind of might might
be a little bit of a torturous episode.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
Yeah, I mean, the problem I've run into is I
can't have gluten, but I also can't have like pea
protein and stuff like that, which is all in gluten
free pasta.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Gluten free pasta is actually worse for me than regular pasta.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
That's so weird, but I mean, I guess it makes sense,
so you.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Get yes, here, here's something that what you think about.
To Max, this too shall pass?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Duh, All things must pass.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
George Harrison, too shall past. Uh Ah.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Dot Wave is in the outro music.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Thanks also to Alex Williams, our composer for this Bangan soundtrack.
We're gonna thank several other people of the way, but
also uh, Noel, thanks for thanks for not being mad
at me about that put talking about.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I could never be mad at you, Ben, you gave
me the godfather kiss of death. I'm afeared of you,
but I could never be mad. No, It's all brotherly
love here on ridiculous history. Huge thanks to Jonathan Strickman,
the quizz A, j Bahama's Jacobs, the Puzzler, and geez
who else.
Speaker 6 (32:20):
Ben.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, thank you for this incredible research brief that you
poured your heart and soul, blood, sweat and tears into.
It's a real romp and we're looking forward to getting
back into it just in a day or so for
these fine folks at home.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, this is the beginning of the story, so tuned in.
We'll also spoiler at the end of part two give
you some pretty promote cooking tips.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
That's right, We'll see you next time, folks. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it from one of our
favorite audio chefs, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Early on my woohoo.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
You never early, It's never. It's never too early or
too late for a woohoo. It's always precisely on time.
Like a wizard who a lord of the Max don't
mess with the balance of the universe.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Question that all I do is mess with the balance
of the universe.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
This reminds me of This reminds me of a recent
episode where I like, hey, you guys are stepping on
the intro. But I love the I love the energy.
Also love hanging out with the Ridiculous Historian crew. That's
mister Noel Brown, the man the myth legend right there.
Basta for pasta and I have been bullied. I've got
(01:19):
a I've got a dumb joke for you guys that
I actually got a little bit roasted for on Twitter.
Do you want to hear it?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Yeah? Okay, well ratio.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Yeah. It's when people making fun of you get more
likes than things.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Like that's not the good, but it also it does
imply a certain amount of power.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
You please beg.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Racia groans for saying, uh, hey, every for a moment
of truth and accountability. I said, hey everyone, I've been
doing this thing. Is during the pandemic. I think I've
been doing this thing where I'm just going through all
my old noodles and putting whatever I have in them.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And I'm not sure if that makes me a good chef.
Maybe I have in pasta syndrome.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Oh yeah, that's it's it's it's a it's a twist
on an old trustee.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Yeah, it's good now that joke. Drum dot Wave have
got some youth threat there.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
It's funny how sometimes people will just text you and
say the name of a popular gift dot gift. You know,
you can just say the name of the sound cu
instead of actually putting it in. Quick question, you guys,
how do you feel about mixing pastas? It seems borderline sacrilege,
doesn't it. But it's all the same stuff, it's just
different shapes.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I'm okay with it. But I'm what they would call
philosophically optimistic nihilist.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Here you go.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I mean I'm I'm down with being sacrilege and most things.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Okay, what about what I would?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I would avoid it typically, But to your point, Ben,
there is it comes a time in every home chef's
life where you have a little bit of a couple
of different pastas and the bottom of the bag, and
what are you gonna do? Just like have fi, I
have noodles, you gotta just combine those suckers and make
a salad, a pasta salad.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Well, now you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And some of the shapes are similar right or close enough.
They're kissing cousins where you could say, hey, is it
that we're gonna get in trouble for this one? Is
it that terrible for me to have some elbow macaroni
and some maybe bow tie or some rigatoni?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Or it's like a pasta trail mix kind of situation.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Although I would perhaps turn my nose up ever so
slightly and mixing long noodle type pastas with small bite
sized pasta, that's just seems like it.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Would open up a black hole in time space.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
That seems gonna be just really messy. And to know
your point about you got to use the pasta. To
quote Ben who likes to quote Checkers.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
You gotta eat you son of a gun.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
That's back.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
But Ben, you have been fascinating with this pasta thing
for a hot minute, now, to the point where you
invited us all out on a field trip that sadly
didn't happen to an exhibit on pasta and one of
our fair museums here in Lanta. We talked about it,
I believe on the last episode of Ridiculous History.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
The Moda, right, is the name of the museum.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The Museum of Design in Atlantantah. Yeah, so Museum of
Design Atlanta. They had this. They had this exhibit about
not the history of pasta, which, as we'll see, is
a little bit of a bag of Badger's or a
bowl of Messi spaghetti.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Murky like pasta water.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
There it is perfect. Yes, this is why we hang
out man. The exhibit was entirely about the history of
pasta design. That was That was it, which is sort
of like going to an exhibit about the history of
tarot card printing see specifications.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I have to ask, though, I mean, there are like
branded pasta designs that fall well outside of the cannon
of you know, historical pasta shapes. I think we all
are looking at like Kraft macaroni and cheese, for example,
the weird little amorphous noodle shapes that they claim are
ninja turtles.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
I don't see it. Do you see it?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
I I welcome people's creativity.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
If that was a ninja turtle, it would be saying
kill me.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You know, I don't think it's a top tier don't
teenage turtle.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
It's the same with cereal shapes. I just I never
see it, but it's fun to you know, imagine if.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
If it is indeed a ninja turtle, those shapes, then
they are the Picasso of the ninja turtles.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
A lot of Pikasso figures. I feel like, if they
were alive, would be saying kill. But we love fasta.
It's amazing. We gotta we gotta start this way. So
first off, folks, we're figuring out whether or not the
murky origins of pasta the It's gonna be a one
part episode or two part episode. We love food history,
So do you Nola? I must ask, and I know
(06:08):
this can be a difficult question. No gotcha journalism here.
If you had to choose a favorite pasta shape, what
would it be?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
It's a real Sophie's choice here, right posing. Ben.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
You know, I'll tell you I really like tagli oh,
the kind of long flat fat boys, you know. But
I also really like Asian I think it's northern Chinese
cuisine that does the like never ending, unbroken giant flat
fat noodle.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
I really like that.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, the hand pulled the knife cut is also good.
If you've ever been to a place here in Atlanta
called Landsu Ramen, there's a window into the kitchen where
you can see these wizards stretching this dough and like
stretching between their fingers and magically pulling these noodles. And
every time they spread their hands apart accordion style, another.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Set of noodles forms. It's really really cool. But so
Ta Telly.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I really like those Asian flat never ending noodles. And
I really like bucatini because of the grippiness of it,
which we're gonna get into as well in terms of
the utility of pasta shapes. How about you, Ben oh Man. Well,
like picking a favorite child, isn't it We.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Talk about this soft air a disturbingly a frequent amount
of times. It's it's funny, folks, when you if you
heard nol Max and myself talking and just shooting the breeze,
you would be surprised by how passionate we are about
very specific things. And for a while now I've been
(07:48):
on record being a little bit militant about Bukatini. How However,
I mean, it's all the surface area, right, and it's
all the sauce for me, I'm a sauce boy. But
the said thank you, But the I would also I
would also have a tough time. I love you did
the Sophie's choice thing, because I feel like if I'm
(08:10):
picking a long shape, like a noodle shape, then I'm
ignoring the entirely different horizon of you know, the bow
tie or the shorter cylindrical ideations.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
It's funny because even the cylindrical ones are almost a
category under themselves. Yes, yeah, And then you've got like
big noodle cylinders that are for like pasta bakes, you know,
or or layered noodle situations like lasagna, And I don't know.
With the Oasis being in the news lately, I keep
seeing this amazing clip of Liam Gallagher at a concert
where he goes.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Fancy someome Lazaangna. Yeah, I'm triggered by that in a
good way. Good trip.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I've been watching so many Oasis, so many Oasis performances
and listening to albums because what wonderwall bin Uh, Well,
maybe I'm not.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
You don't really want to that's a different song. So
you and I are going to live forever through pasta.
It's not as bad for you as you think too.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
By the way, I believe some studies recently come out
saying that carbs are not the death knell that they've
been made out to be.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Sure, sure, but look study schmiddies. Though, Am I right right?
And I like that you're saying it that way. Ignore,
I mean, treat those things with a grain of salt.
Shout out to the book Salt by Mark Kurlanski, because
if you notice, over time, uh, there is always going
to be some scare report and then some countervailing report
(09:40):
before we move into this Max. Millions of people are
asking you right now, pasta got a favorite.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I hate to say it because you've already said it,
Ben Bucatini.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
I love it because it's like this is the superior speaking.
You get the pasta on all the sides. I feel
like I've been looking for it, but I feel like
there's a like version of Pukatini or difference one that's
like a really fat Bukatini. I've been googling fat Bukatini
and just getting bukatini.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
So what kind of that?
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Yeahs interesting ones, especially because I'm doing it on my
work laptop.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So if if I'm a.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
I will make sure to find someone to finish this
episode if I can let go of my search results
from today.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Bro uh dola and I have the search history equivalent
of face tattoos.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
I think of getting a face tattoo of my search history.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
I I remember talking to uh some people over my
brother's slate, like Trevory Young and such, and like be like,
I don't know if I should be like searcher than
this thing. I guess next we work on true crime,
all right, there are no rules.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
First off, there's something about the phrase fat bukatini that
feels dangerously euphemistic.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Uh yeah, well that's what I was right. Oh, but
I like bow ties too. I like just the humble
It's good. It's a fun shape. And I also really
like the spirally ones sometimes I'll go a little ham
and I'll get the tri colored ones.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Yeah, what do they call those spiral ones?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Brigatoni is the hollow spirally ones, But I'm thinking about
the pure, just spiral fusiliini.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Rottini is a rottini as well. Oh man, So this
is this is the thing, folks. Whether we're talking ravioli,
a nice spaghett yes you heard cat me do the
hand thing, or you know, a lemonade caper bowl of
the humble bow tie. Almost everyone has a go to
(11:42):
favorite dish that is kind of pasta esque. Pasta is
right now one of the world's most accessible foods, and
nearly every country has some version of this as a staple.
In our exploration today, we're asking where this culinary miracle
(12:03):
came from. And as you'll see, we're going to hit
you to a ridiculous secret about pasta. No one really
knows its origin story.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Yeah, it's that parallel thinking again.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Where it's just it comes from such a commonly available
staple crop in the form of wheat, and various ways
of processing that stuff, pounding it, you know whatever.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Like it wasn't the most novel idea to.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Just kind of combine that with water, make it into
a paste, roll it into a fun shape, and boil it.
You know, people figure that stuff out pretty quick. It's like,
we don't know the first person that ate the mushroom
that didn't kill you, but it probably was multiple people,
you know, many, many, hundreds, thousands of.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
People across this wide world of sports that we call earth.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, there we go. It was the second person in
that mushroom field who survived and said, all right.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
The one guy dropped that, I mean, and then they
checked that one off the list or crossed it rather right,
and we'll skip that one.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Oh. Also, we should say, in a slightly serious note,
if you are fortunate enough to live near a wild
forested area wherein you can forage for things like mushrooms,
be very very careful. There's a great app which we'll
mention at the end because I need to I need
to check my phone to find it. There's a great
(13:32):
app that can help you identify mushrooms. If you are
not mycologists, then don't eat random mushrooms.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And I'll tell you by the way. You know what
I love.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I love a mushroom pasta. I love oh yeah, pasta
dish with a creamy sauce and just sh tons of mushrooms.
So that's one of my favorite flavors and textures in
the world. It does seem to be divisive. Some people
either seem to love or hate mushrooms in culinary you
know settings.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, sometimes it's just a texture thing.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Some people that hate the texture of mushrooms, You can
grind it up into a sauce and they love it
because it has this wonderful lumami, but it just skips
the texture part of it.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
So that is something to think about.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
If your kids say they hate mushrooms or they hate vegetables,
try just you know, immersion blending the heck out of that,
and then they'll they'll get those nutrients and those lovely flavors.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Like all those folks who say I hate fresh tomatoes
but I love it.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
I used to hate them, dude, us so bad.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
I may have told the story on the pod before,
but like my mom loved them so much and wanted
me to love them, to the point where she laid
out a platter of tomatoes at the dinner table, forced
me to eat them, wouldn't let me leave, and I
ate one and I threw up all over the table
because something about a fresh tomato. Then it just hit
me in the most horrible way. And I still don't
(14:53):
I won't eat a tomato. I'll eat it on a sandwich,
but I won't just bite into a fresh tomato.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
But boy does it hit different when you make it
into a sauce. Yes.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
And as we're diving in here, let's get our forks
around what this pasta stuff actually is.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Get it around our forks.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I guess, twist it you know, yes, yeah, yeah, oh yeah,
I just described a weird fork's I'd.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Be like a psychic like matrix type action, like get
that fork around. You know you made around the pasta of.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
All about it, bro, But we know that pasta is
a group term, right for a panoply of products that
have a few commonalities. They're made from unleavened dough created
with wheat or some other type of flour, which can
be controversial because people have divisive opinions about pasta. And
(15:42):
then this, as you said, nol, this is combined with
water and sometimes eggs, and then it's molded into all
sorts of shapes and boiled in general.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
And while it does occupy the same wrung on the
famed food pyramid as bread. The thing that separates is
that lack of a rising agent, you know, that's where
the unleavened part comes from. Forgive me if this is
stating the obvious, but just thought i'd mentioned.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I think we should always state.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
The kind of our thing ridiculous system.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
The use of Durham wheat in the world of pasta
in particular is usually described as the main differentiating factor
between your pastas and your other noodle esque dishes. But
for a lot of people, a lot of hungry people,
especially pasta and noodles often used interchangeably. It's kind of
(16:35):
like how all mazes are puzzles, but not all puzzles
are mazes.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
That's right. It's a VN diagram type situation.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
I mean, in a lot of Asian cuisine you'll see
pasta or noodles made from rice instead of wheat. And
in a lot of you know, for example, African culture,
there's different forms, different shapes. That almost feels a little
more like a rice or a what is it arborea rice?
Stir constantly? What's that dish? Risotto? There does come another
(17:03):
Van Diagram situation, where is is it rice. Is it
pasta you know?
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Or is it rice? Like you know?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, here we go, right. We also wanted to explore
the etymology of pasta. Just pasta as a word is
astonishingly recent. I did not believe this in the beginning
when the three of us were researching for this. It
is an Italian term and the first documented use of
(17:31):
this word in this sense describing a genre of food.
It comes from eighteen twenty seven.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
Bro that's practically nineteen hundred.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
That's like last week.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I mean, that's insane. I would never have guessed that
in a million years. And I do love the way
certain Brits say it past past pasta paasta. That's well, now,
it's not sound like we're saying from Philly or something, right, Brooklyn.
But paste it does make sense because you know, again,
to go back to your description of the basis of
what pasta is, it starts out as a kind of
(18:06):
pasty dough or a doe paste, depending on your kind
of glass half fall glass, half empty philosophy.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, and we'll note a discrepancy here because as we
see the actual stuff we call pasta or noodles or
some sort of dough made from grain, water and boiled dumplings.
Even you know what I mean's.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Not a noodle, but it kind of is.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
It's kind of ravioli. Ravioli is kind of a dumpling.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
But a dumpling is also can just be sliced up
pieces of boiled dough. It doesn't have to be stuffed
with something like a you know, a shoeme, you know,
or a perogi or something like that. But then you
also have stuffed pasta. So there, Oh, it's ven diagrammy
And it is really interesting, this whole game of telephone
we play with the history of food because there's so
(18:55):
much parallel thinking, especially when it comes to food.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, people have been grinding stuff and mixing it with
water since time immemorial. That practice probably predates the written word,
if we're being absolutely honest. So when people say pasta today,
we often think of Italian dishes. Right. You could go,
for instance, somewhere in the Pacific Theater and there are
(19:20):
going to be a ton of noodle shops. But if
a place says they're selling pasta, they're usually selling Italian cuisine.
The idea, however, is still ultimately the same when it
gets to your tummy. We're alluding to an ancient, delicious practice.
And this is where we get into oh some juicy
(19:42):
legends which we will serve al dente.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Throw it at the wall. See if it's sticks there
we are.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It's a great kind of metaphor for a thing no
one has probably ever actually done.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
I think I told you though. It was on one
of the shows that we do together. I did roastpagetti. Yeah,
I just wanted to see some of us slide down.
Sadly for most of his slip yeah, okay, most of
his slip. I I honestly, I combined it with I
did case testing.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
It's so lame.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I put some spaghetti and sauce and through it at
a wall and then just regularly spaghetti.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
You were doing science, you were doing. Yeah, I got it.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I have a lot of friends growing up.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Is it though a?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I mean, is it really a decent way of checking
out whether your pasta is aldente? Seems to me like
you just pull a noodle and chomp on it. You know,
you have to give Sully your walls. We'll leave the
walls out of it. I think if you get to
the point where you're throwing food at a wall. You've
made a couple missteps as a chef already, but it
has to originate from somewhere for it to have gotten
(20:46):
even to the point where people use it as kind
of an idiom for like trying out different ideas. Yeah, sorry,
I'm getting this off track here because there's so much
to get into we can't really afford to to dilly
dally too much.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
But Ben, like you mentioned legends, pasta le legends.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yes, yeah, so it is uh, it is true that this,
like so many ancient practices, the origin story here does
descend into legend for centuries and centuries millennia, heck, millennia. Travelers, writers, cooks,
poets have all created these homages to something like pasta,
(21:31):
and it's really difficult to differentiate such a simple, brilliant
idea from its cousins. But we know a lot about
references to stuff like pasta.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Right, yeah, Horace or depending if you want to be
He's he's a leading Roman poet during the reign of Augustus.
He mentioned something in his writing is called legana anna.
I don't know, man, it seems pretty close. Which were yeah, man,
(22:05):
they were fried though they were like fine thin thinly
rolled sheets of fried dough. Atheneus Athenaeus a Pheneus of
Nocratis Nocritis I believe, also had a recipe for something
resembling leagania lagana, which he attributes to the first century.
(22:25):
These names man, Chrysippus of Taiana, Tiana. Man, that's a
cool name, Chrysippus.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah, the same thing you were talking about. This one
specifically refers to sheets of dough made of a wheat
flour and the juice of crushed lettuce.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
No, you lost me. You lost juice of crushed lettuce.
That is not how one uses lettuce properly.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Right, that's the new it to me, crush lettuce water.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yes, it's just weird. It's weird vegetable water. I don't
think there's any reason to do that. Let's just maybe
it was a water short issue.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
I don't know, who knows.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
But then you would flavor that with spices, and then
again to your point, you would fry it in some
kind of oil, usually oliver sunflower oil. If you look
at an early fifth century cookbook, you'll see another dish
called legana, and this one is layers of dough with
meat stuffed between it, So we already see the evolution
(23:25):
of your modern day microwavable Stofer's lichu for sure.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
I mean even even like a Greek Spanic copita, you know,
kind of a spinach pie. I mean it is more
of elevened dough. But there there are lots of Greek
dishes that involve thin layers of dough that kind of
resemble a pasta bake, but they're a little bit of
a different consistency.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
And they're pain to make, you know, oil are they good?
Speaker 4 (23:48):
And it is it's all about the spices. Like have
you ever had something called moussaka. That's something my mom
is a big fan of.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
It's an eggplant based kind of like casserole that is
a little eggy and also has like these really rich
kind of I think it's a clovy kind of thing,
which is when I was younger, I wasn't a huge
fan of, but have grown very fond of, you know,
in my twilight.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yearslight Come on, man. We also want to give a
shout out in advance to our pal Christopher Hasiotis, who
is of Greek descent and can actually cook some.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Of these things descended of Greek royalty. If I'm not mistaken,
I don't know. He just comes off very kingly to me.
He has a regal air. He barely does.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
In the speaking of Greece in the second century a D.
Greek physician Galen mentioned something called ittrion, a homogeneous compound
made of you guessed it, folks, flour and water. If
you go to the Talmud you'll see the attrium is
described as a kind of boiled dough common in palisine
(24:55):
from the third to the fifth centuries a D. And
then you go to the ninth tree you see men
of letters like Isho bar Ali, an Arab physician who
talks about something he calls ittria with two y's, and
he says, these are string like shapes made of simolino flower.
(25:16):
You dry them and then you cook them. So everybody's
kind of doing a dance around the concept of pasta.
They just haven't discovered the word yet.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
It really is just kind of a basic building block
of food, like a carrier or a medium of sorts.
Not to get too nerdy about synthesizers, Sorry, this is
nolal synthesizer corner. But like, the more I get into
learning about sound design and the construction of sound. It
(25:47):
all boils down, no pun intended to some very basic
fundamental building blocks of sound, and then it's all about
how you twist it up and like what filter you
put it through and how you kind of process It's
it's like the sine wave, you know, the square wave
or whatever. These are all things that more or less
exist in nature and then you kind of twist it
up and make something different out of it. That's how
(26:09):
cooking is. And this is like a basic sound wave
of cooking. To bring it back to cuisine. Yeah, I
got your back on that. Let's go one further.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
I would on the on the benz Nerdy writing corner side,
I would say you could make a similar argument with
writing and cooking, right, because the English alphabet is just
a you know, it's less than thirty letters, and people
(26:42):
have changed the course of civilization depending on the order
of which they put those letters. Right, They've added some
sauce to the basic components. Right, So there's there's a
beauty to this.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
There's a sketch, an incredible sketch on Mitchell and Webb.
Look where it's sort of making fun of Gordon Ramsey
and he's he's basically, you know, torturing this poor young
chef by making him make this dish that he just.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Doesn't have to do it. And he ultimately says, I'm
just not good at this.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Now you're better at cooking than me, and he goes,
it's just simple ingredients prepared, you know, fresh ingredients prepared,
simply goes Shakespeare is just pretty words in order, you know,
like we really.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Do get down to, like the difference between something great
and something you know, horrible or mediocre that can contain
the same components. Is ephemeral and it's really hard to
put your finger on, but it is all still kind
of made of the same stuff.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Agreed, one million percent. Nobody checked my mauth also on
that we never want to miss an opportunity to mention
Ephemeral The Fantastic Podcast by our pals Max Williams and
Alex Williams. One.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Surely there's discussion of pasta in the annals of Ephemeral.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
At least off air.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
It shouldn't go as a surprise given all of these
things we've we've mentioned thus far about this kind of
parallel thinking that people still to this very day. Uh,
It's a huge bone of contention as to where pasta
where noodles, Where this you know, culinary technology actually originated.
Was it born in China and then later brought to
(28:21):
Italy via the trade route the Silk Road, or did
it evolve independently and of course in parallel to its
grand Eastern rival, As I mentioned before, the humble rice noodle?
Dare we hazard a first guess by way of a.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Legend Marco Marco, Hello, fish out of water?
Speaker 3 (28:44):
So I forget when you get out of the pool
and running over dangerous though, guys, no running around the pool.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
No no, and no sneaking around like a Skyrim player
tried to get your stealth archer stats up.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Also speaking of debunked myths, is that they find that
it's not really true that if you eat too close
to going in the pool you cramp up. Is that
is that an urban legend that's been debunked or is
that truth to that it's oversimplified?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I I actually, oh man, nobody's ever going to see this,
but I did. I did a series of video pilots
busting myths like that where I had wherein I had
to eat a huge like foot long public sandwich and
then immediately jump in water and try to swim.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Sorry for those that don't have publics, you did say
a public sandwich, not a public sandwich was available.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Stone and finally, ain't it?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
I love it? Yeah, So that that truth. It's a
it's a little or the urban legend, as you said,
is a little oversimplified, but it is still helpful to people,
and that's why it's stuck around for a while. Similar
to the legend that the fourteenth century traveler Marco Polo
(30:05):
from Venice. What you'll hear a lot similar. It's kind
of like when people of past generations in the United
States were in grade school, they would hear that Christopher
Columbus crystal ball cologne discovered America. Ah, hold the.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Spoon, hold the macarone.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
There we go. Don't call it a comeback or do.
Because this is the end of part one of the
Murky Origins of Pasta, and we will be returning very
soon with part two.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
You sure will.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Man, what a ramp and more romping to come a
real role in the in the sauce lost sauce, not
unlike I'm scared and I need to you know, I
need help.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Where's where's an adult right, not on this show. No,
that's for sure. So we also want to, of course
give a big, big thanks to our super producer, mister
Max Williams. Max, you know this kind of might might
be a little bit of a torturous episode.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
Yeah, I mean, the problem I've run into is I
can't have gluten, but I also can't have like pea
protein and stuff like that, which is all in gluten
free pasta.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Gluten free pasta is actually worse for me than regular pasta.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
That's so weird, but I mean, I guess it makes sense,
so you.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Get yes, here, here's something that what you think about.
To Max, this too shall pass?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Duh, All things must pass.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
George Harrison, too shall past. Uh Ah.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Dot Wave is in the outro music.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Thanks also to Alex Williams, our composer for this Bangan soundtrack.
We're gonna thank several other people of the way, but
also uh, Noel, thanks for thanks for not being mad
at me about that put talking about.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I could never be mad at you, Ben, you gave
me the godfather kiss of death. I'm afeared of you,
but I could never be mad. No, It's all brotherly
love here on ridiculous history. Huge thanks to Jonathan Strickman,
the quizz A, j Bahama's Jacobs, the Puzzler, and geez
who else.
Speaker 6 (32:20):
Ben.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, thank you for this incredible research brief that you
poured your heart and soul, blood, sweat and tears into.
It's a real romp and we're looking forward to getting
back into it just in a day or so for
these fine folks at home.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, this is the beginning of the story, so tuned in.
We'll also spoiler at the end of part two give
you some pretty promote cooking tips.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
That's right, We'll see you next time, folks. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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