Latest / Ridiculous History / The Ridiculous, Murky Origins of Pasta, Part One: Basic Ingredients, Delicious Results

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The Ridiculous, Murky Origins of Pasta, Part One: Basic Ingredients, Delicious Results · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it from one of our
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  Speaker 1: favorite audio chefs, mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Early on my woohoo.
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  Speaker 3: You never early, It's never. It's never too early or
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  Speaker 3: too late for a woohoo. It's always precisely on time.
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  Speaker 3: Like a wizard who a lord of the Max don't
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  Speaker 3: mess with the balance of the universe.
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  Speaker 2: Question that all I do is mess with the balance
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  Speaker 2: of the universe.
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  Speaker 1: This reminds me of This reminds me of a recent
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  Speaker 1: episode where I like, hey, you guys are stepping on
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  Speaker 1: the intro. But I love the I love the energy.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Also love hanging out with the Ridiculous Historian crew. That's
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  Speaker 1: mister Noel Brown, the man the myth legend right there.
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  Speaker 1: Basta for pasta and I have been bullied. I've got
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  Speaker 1: a I've got a dumb joke for you guys that
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  Speaker 1: I actually got a little bit roasted for on Twitter.
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  Speaker 1: Do you want to hear it?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah? Okay, well ratio.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah. It's when people making fun of you get more
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  Speaker 5: likes than things.
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  Speaker 3: Like that's not the good, but it also it does
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  Speaker 3: imply a certain amount of power.
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  Speaker 4: You please beg.
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  Speaker 1: Racia groans for saying, uh, hey, every for a moment
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  Speaker 1: of truth and accountability. I said, hey everyone, I've been
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  Speaker 1: doing this thing. Is during the pandemic. I think I've
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  Speaker 1: been doing this thing where I'm just going through all
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  Speaker 1: my old noodles and putting whatever I have in them.
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  Speaker 4: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm not sure if that makes me a good chef.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe I have in pasta syndrome.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's it's it's it's a it's a twist
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  Speaker 3: on an old trustee.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's good now that joke. Drum dot Wave have
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  Speaker 5: got some youth threat there.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: It's funny how sometimes people will just text you and
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  Speaker 3: say the name of a popular gift dot gift. You know,
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  Speaker 3: you can just say the name of the sound cu
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  Speaker 3: instead of actually putting it in. Quick question, you guys,
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  Speaker 3: how do you feel about mixing pastas? It seems borderline sacrilege,
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  Speaker 3: doesn't it. But it's all the same stuff, it's just
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  Speaker 3: different shapes.
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  Speaker 1: I'm okay with it. But I'm what they would call
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  Speaker 1: philosophically optimistic nihilist.
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  Speaker 4: Here you go.
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  Speaker 2: I mean I'm I'm down with being sacrilege and most things.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, what about what I would?
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  Speaker 3: I would avoid it typically, But to your point, Ben,
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  Speaker 3: there is it comes a time in every home chef's
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  Speaker 3: life where you have a little bit of a couple
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  Speaker 3: of different pastas and the bottom of the bag, and
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  Speaker 3: what are you gonna do? Just like have fi, I
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  Speaker 3: have noodles, you gotta just combine those suckers and make
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  Speaker 3: a salad, a pasta salad.
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  Speaker 4: Well, now you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 1: And some of the shapes are similar right or close enough.
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  Speaker 1: They're kissing cousins where you could say, hey, is it
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  Speaker 1: that we're gonna get in trouble for this one? Is
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  Speaker 1: it that terrible for me to have some elbow macaroni
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  Speaker 1: and some maybe bow tie or some rigatoni?
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  Speaker 4: Or it's like a pasta trail mix kind of situation.
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  Speaker 3: Although I would perhaps turn my nose up ever so
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  Speaker 3: slightly and mixing long noodle type pastas with small bite
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  Speaker 3: sized pasta, that's just seems like it.
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  Speaker 4: Would open up a black hole in time space.
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  Speaker 5: That seems gonna be just really messy. And to know
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  Speaker 5: your point about you got to use the pasta. To
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  Speaker 5: quote Ben who likes to quote Checkers.
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  Speaker 1: You gotta eat you son of a gun.
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  Speaker 4: That's back.
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  Speaker 3: But Ben, you have been fascinating with this pasta thing
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  Speaker 3: for a hot minute, now, to the point where you
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  Speaker 3: invited us all out on a field trip that sadly
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  Speaker 3: didn't happen to an exhibit on pasta and one of
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  Speaker 3: our fair museums here in Lanta. We talked about it,
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  Speaker 3: I believe on the last episode of Ridiculous History.
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  Speaker 4: The Moda, right, is the name of the museum.
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  Speaker 1: The Museum of Design in Atlantantah. Yeah, so Museum of
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  Speaker 1: Design Atlanta. They had this. They had this exhibit about
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  Speaker 1: not the history of pasta, which, as we'll see, is
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of a bag of Badger's or a
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  Speaker 1: bowl of Messi spaghetti.
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  Speaker 4: Murky like pasta water.
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  Speaker 1: There it is perfect. Yes, this is why we hang
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  Speaker 1: out man. The exhibit was entirely about the history of
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  Speaker 1: pasta design. That was That was it, which is sort
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  Speaker 1: of like going to an exhibit about the history of
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  Speaker 1: tarot card printing see specifications.
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  Speaker 3: I have to ask, though, I mean, there are like
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  Speaker 3: branded pasta designs that fall well outside of the cannon
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  Speaker 3: of you know, historical pasta shapes. I think we all
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  Speaker 3: are looking at like Kraft macaroni and cheese, for example,
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  Speaker 3: the weird little amorphous noodle shapes that they claim are
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  Speaker 3: ninja turtles.
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  Speaker 4: I don't see it. Do you see it?
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  Speaker 1: I I welcome people's creativity.
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  Speaker 4: If that was a ninja turtle, it would be saying
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  Speaker 4: kill me.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I don't think it's a top tier don't
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  Speaker 1: teenage turtle.
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  Speaker 3: It's the same with cereal shapes. I just I never
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  Speaker 3: see it, but it's fun to you know, imagine if.
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  Speaker 1: If it is indeed a ninja turtle, those shapes, then
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  Speaker 1: they are the Picasso of the ninja turtles.
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  Speaker 3: A lot of Pikasso figures. I feel like, if they
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  Speaker 3: were alive, would be saying kill. But we love fasta.
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  Speaker 3: It's amazing. We gotta we gotta start this way. So
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  Speaker 3: first off, folks, we're figuring out whether or not the
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  Speaker 3: murky origins of pasta the It's gonna be a one
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  Speaker 3: part episode or two part episode. We love food history,
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  Speaker 3: So do you Nola? I must ask, and I know
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  Speaker 3: this can be a difficult question. No gotcha journalism here.
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  Speaker 3: If you had to choose a favorite pasta shape, what
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  Speaker 3: would it be?
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  Speaker 4: It's a real Sophie's choice here, right posing. Ben.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I'll tell you I really like tagli oh,
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  Speaker 3: the kind of long flat fat boys, you know. But
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  Speaker 3: I also really like Asian I think it's northern Chinese
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  Speaker 3: cuisine that does the like never ending, unbroken giant flat
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  Speaker 3: fat noodle.
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  Speaker 4: I really like that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the hand pulled the knife cut is also good.
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  Speaker 3: If you've ever been to a place here in Atlanta
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  Speaker 3: called Landsu Ramen, there's a window into the kitchen where
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  Speaker 3: you can see these wizards stretching this dough and like
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  Speaker 3: stretching between their fingers and magically pulling these noodles. And
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  Speaker 3: every time they spread their hands apart accordion style, another.
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  Speaker 4: Set of noodles forms. It's really really cool. But so
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  Speaker 4: Ta Telly.
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  Speaker 3: I really like those Asian flat never ending noodles. And
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  Speaker 3: I really like bucatini because of the grippiness of it,
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  Speaker 3: which we're gonna get into as well in terms of
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  Speaker 3: the utility of pasta shapes. How about you, Ben oh Man. Well,
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  Speaker 3: like picking a favorite child, isn't it We.
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  Speaker 1: Talk about this soft air a disturbingly a frequent amount
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  Speaker 1: of times. It's it's funny, folks, when you if you
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  Speaker 1: heard nol Max and myself talking and just shooting the breeze,
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  Speaker 1: you would be surprised by how passionate we are about
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  Speaker 1: very specific things. And for a while now I've been
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  Speaker 1: on record being a little bit militant about Bukatini. How However,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it's all the surface area, right, and it's
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  Speaker 1: all the sauce for me, I'm a sauce boy. But
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  Speaker 1: the said thank you, But the I would also I
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  Speaker 1: would also have a tough time. I love you did
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  Speaker 1: the Sophie's choice thing, because I feel like if I'm
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  Speaker 1: picking a long shape, like a noodle shape, then I'm
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  Speaker 1: ignoring the entirely different horizon of you know, the bow
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  Speaker 1: tie or the shorter cylindrical ideations.
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  Speaker 4: You know.
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  Speaker 3: It's funny because even the cylindrical ones are almost a
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  Speaker 3: category under themselves. Yes, yeah, And then you've got like
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  Speaker 3: big noodle cylinders that are for like pasta bakes, you know,
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  Speaker 3: or or layered noodle situations like lasagna, And I don't know.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: With the Oasis being in the news lately, I keep
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: seeing this amazing clip of Liam Gallagher at a concert
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: where he goes.
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  Speaker 4: Fancy someome Lazaangna. Yeah, I'm triggered by that in a
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  Speaker 4: good way. Good trip.
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  Speaker 1: I've been watching so many Oasis, so many Oasis performances
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: and listening to albums because what wonderwall bin Uh, Well,
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  Speaker 1: maybe I'm not.
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  Speaker 4: You don't really want to that's a different song. So
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  Speaker 4: you and I are going to live forever through pasta.
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  Speaker 4: It's not as bad for you as you think too.
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  Speaker 3: By the way, I believe some studies recently come out
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  Speaker 3: saying that carbs are not the death knell that they've
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  Speaker 3: been made out to be.
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  Speaker 1: Sure, sure, but look study schmiddies. Though, Am I right right?
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  Speaker 1: And I like that you're saying it that way. Ignore,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, treat those things with a grain of salt.
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  Speaker 1: Shout out to the book Salt by Mark Kurlanski, because
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  Speaker 1: if you notice, over time, uh, there is always going
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  Speaker 1: to be some scare report and then some countervailing report
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  Speaker 1: before we move into this Max. Millions of people are
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  Speaker 1: asking you right now, pasta got a favorite.
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  Speaker 2: I hate to say it because you've already said it,
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  Speaker 2: Ben Bucatini.
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  Speaker 5: I love it because it's like this is the superior speaking.
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  Speaker 5: You get the pasta on all the sides. I feel
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  Speaker 5: like I've been looking for it, but I feel like
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  Speaker 5: there's a like version of Pukatini or difference one that's
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  Speaker 5: like a really fat Bukatini. I've been googling fat Bukatini
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  Speaker 5: and just getting bukatini.
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  Speaker 4: So what kind of that?
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  Speaker 5: Yeahs interesting ones, especially because I'm doing it on my
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  Speaker 5: work laptop.
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  Speaker 2: So if if I'm a.
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  Speaker 5: I will make sure to find someone to finish this
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  Speaker 5: episode if I can let go of my search results
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  Speaker 5: from today.
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  Speaker 1: Bro uh dola and I have the search history equivalent
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  Speaker 1: of face tattoos.
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  Speaker 4: I think of getting a face tattoo of my search history.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I mean.
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  Speaker 5: I I remember talking to uh some people over my
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: brother's slate, like Trevory Young and such, and like be like,
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  Speaker 5: I don't know if I should be like searcher than
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  Speaker 5: this thing. I guess next we work on true crime,
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  Speaker 5: all right, there are no rules.
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  Speaker 1: First off, there's something about the phrase fat bukatini that
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  Speaker 1: feels dangerously euphemistic.
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  Speaker 3: Uh yeah, well that's what I was right. Oh, but
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  Speaker 3: I like bow ties too. I like just the humble
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  Speaker 3: It's good. It's a fun shape. And I also really
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  Speaker 3: like the spirally ones sometimes I'll go a little ham
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  Speaker 3: and I'll get the tri colored ones.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, what do they call those spiral ones?
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  Speaker 3: Brigatoni is the hollow spirally ones, But I'm thinking about
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  Speaker 3: the pure, just spiral fusiliini.
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  Speaker 1: Rottini is a rottini as well. Oh man, So this
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  Speaker 1: is this is the thing, folks. Whether we're talking ravioli,
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  Speaker 1: a nice spaghett yes you heard cat me do the
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  Speaker 1: hand thing, or you know, a lemonade caper bowl of
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  Speaker 1: the humble bow tie. Almost everyone has a go to
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  Speaker 1: favorite dish that is kind of pasta esque. Pasta is
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  Speaker 1: right now one of the world's most accessible foods, and
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  Speaker 1: nearly every country has some version of this as a staple.
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  Speaker 1: In our exploration today, we're asking where this culinary miracle
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  Speaker 1: came from. And as you'll see, we're going to hit
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  Speaker 1: you to a ridiculous secret about pasta. No one really
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  Speaker 1: knows its origin story.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's that parallel thinking again.
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  Speaker 3: Where it's just it comes from such a commonly available
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  Speaker 3: staple crop in the form of wheat, and various ways
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  Speaker 3: of processing that stuff, pounding it, you know whatever.
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  Speaker 4: Like it wasn't the most novel idea to.
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  Speaker 3: Just kind of combine that with water, make it into
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  Speaker 3: a paste, roll it into a fun shape, and boil it.
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  Speaker 3: You know, people figure that stuff out pretty quick. It's like,
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  Speaker 3: we don't know the first person that ate the mushroom
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: that didn't kill you, but it probably was multiple people,
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  Speaker 3: you know, many, many, hundreds, thousands of.
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  Speaker 4: People across this wide world of sports that we call earth.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go. It was the second person in
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  Speaker 1: that mushroom field who survived and said, all right.
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  Speaker 3: The one guy dropped that, I mean, and then they
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: checked that one off the list or crossed it rather right,
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: and we'll skip that one.
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  Speaker 1: Oh. Also, we should say, in a slightly serious note,
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  Speaker 1: if you are fortunate enough to live near a wild
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: forested area wherein you can forage for things like mushrooms,
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  Speaker 1: be very very careful. There's a great app which we'll
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  Speaker 1: mention at the end because I need to I need
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: to check my phone to find it. There's a great
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: app that can help you identify mushrooms. If you are
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  Speaker 1: not mycologists, then don't eat random mushrooms.
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  Speaker 4: And I'll tell you by the way. You know what
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  Speaker 4: I love.
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  Speaker 3: I love a mushroom pasta. I love oh yeah, pasta
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  Speaker 3: dish with a creamy sauce and just sh tons of mushrooms.
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  Speaker 3: So that's one of my favorite flavors and textures in
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  Speaker 3: the world. It does seem to be divisive. Some people
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: either seem to love or hate mushrooms in culinary you
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  Speaker 3: know settings.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes it's just a texture thing.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, right.
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  Speaker 3: Some people that hate the texture of mushrooms, You can
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  Speaker 3: grind it up into a sauce and they love it
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  Speaker 3: because it has this wonderful lumami, but it just skips
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  Speaker 3: the texture part of it.
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  Speaker 4: So that is something to think about.
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  Speaker 3: If your kids say they hate mushrooms or they hate vegetables,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: try just you know, immersion blending the heck out of that,
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  Speaker 3: and then they'll they'll get those nutrients and those lovely flavors.
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  Speaker 1: Like all those folks who say I hate fresh tomatoes
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  Speaker 1: but I love it.
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  Speaker 4: I used to hate them, dude, us so bad.
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  Speaker 3: I may have told the story on the pod before,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: but like my mom loved them so much and wanted
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: me to love them, to the point where she laid
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: out a platter of tomatoes at the dinner table, forced
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: me to eat them, wouldn't let me leave, and I
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: ate one and I threw up all over the table
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: because something about a fresh tomato. Then it just hit
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: me in the most horrible way. And I still don't
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: I won't eat a tomato. I'll eat it on a sandwich,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: but I won't just bite into a fresh tomato.
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  Speaker 4: But boy does it hit different when you make it
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  Speaker 4: into a sauce. Yes.
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  Speaker 1: And as we're diving in here, let's get our forks
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  Speaker 1: around what this pasta stuff actually is.
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  Speaker 4: Get it around our forks.
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  Speaker 1: I guess, twist it you know, yes, yeah, yeah, oh yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I just described a weird fork's I'd.
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  Speaker 3: Be like a psychic like matrix type action, like get
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  Speaker 3: that fork around. You know you made around the pasta of.
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  Speaker 1: All about it, bro, But we know that pasta is
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: a group term, right for a panoply of products that
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: have a few commonalities. They're made from unleavened dough created
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: with wheat or some other type of flour, which can
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: be controversial because people have divisive opinions about pasta. And
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: then this, as you said, nol, this is combined with
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: water and sometimes eggs, and then it's molded into all
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: sorts of shapes and boiled in general.
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  Speaker 3: And while it does occupy the same wrung on the
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: famed food pyramid as bread. The thing that separates is
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  Speaker 3: that lack of a rising agent, you know, that's where
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  Speaker 3: the unleavened part comes from. Forgive me if this is
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: stating the obvious, but just thought i'd mentioned.
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  Speaker 1: I think we should always state.
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: The kind of our thing ridiculous system.
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  Speaker 1: The use of Durham wheat in the world of pasta
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  Speaker 1: in particular is usually described as the main differentiating factor
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  Speaker 1: between your pastas and your other noodle esque dishes. But
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  Speaker 1: for a lot of people, a lot of hungry people,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: especially pasta and noodles often used interchangeably. It's kind of
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: like how all mazes are puzzles, but not all puzzles
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: are mazes.
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  Speaker 4: That's right. It's a VN diagram type situation.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, in a lot of Asian cuisine you'll see
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  Speaker 3: pasta or noodles made from rice instead of wheat. And
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  Speaker 3: in a lot of you know, for example, African culture,
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  Speaker 3: there's different forms, different shapes. That almost feels a little
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: more like a rice or a what is it arborea rice?
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  Speaker 3: Stir constantly? What's that dish? Risotto? There does come another
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  Speaker 3: Van Diagram situation, where is is it rice. Is it
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  Speaker 3: pasta you know?
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  Speaker 4: Or is it rice? Like you know?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, here we go, right. We also wanted to explore
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  Speaker 1: the etymology of pasta. Just pasta as a word is
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  Speaker 1: astonishingly recent. I did not believe this in the beginning
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: when the three of us were researching for this. It
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  Speaker 1: is an Italian term and the first documented use of
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: this word in this sense describing a genre of food.
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  Speaker 1: It comes from eighteen twenty seven.
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  Speaker 4: Bro that's practically nineteen hundred.
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  Speaker 1: That's like last week.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, that's insane. I would never have guessed that
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  Speaker 3: in a million years. And I do love the way
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: certain Brits say it past past pasta paasta. That's well, now,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: it's not sound like we're saying from Philly or something, right, Brooklyn.
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  Speaker 3: But paste it does make sense because you know, again,
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  Speaker 3: to go back to your description of the basis of
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: what pasta is, it starts out as a kind of
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: pasty dough or a doe paste, depending on your kind
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: of glass half fall glass, half empty philosophy.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll note a discrepancy here because as we
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: see the actual stuff we call pasta or noodles or
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: some sort of dough made from grain, water and boiled dumplings.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Even you know what I mean's.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: Not a noodle, but it kind of is.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: It's kind of ravioli. Ravioli is kind of a dumpling.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: But a dumpling is also can just be sliced up
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: pieces of boiled dough. It doesn't have to be stuffed
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: with something like a you know, a shoeme, you know,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: or a perogi or something like that. But then you
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: also have stuffed pasta. So there, Oh, it's ven diagrammy
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: And it is really interesting, this whole game of telephone
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: we play with the history of food because there's so
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: much parallel thinking, especially when it comes to food.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, people have been grinding stuff and mixing it with
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: water since time immemorial. That practice probably predates the written word,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: if we're being absolutely honest. So when people say pasta today,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: we often think of Italian dishes. Right. You could go,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: for instance, somewhere in the Pacific Theater and there are
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: going to be a ton of noodle shops. But if
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a place says they're selling pasta, they're usually selling Italian cuisine.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: The idea, however, is still ultimately the same when it
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: gets to your tummy. We're alluding to an ancient, delicious practice.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And this is where we get into oh some juicy
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: legends which we will serve al dente.
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: Throw it at the wall. See if it's sticks there
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: we are.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: It's a great kind of metaphor for a thing no
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: one has probably ever actually done.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I think I told you though. It was on one
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: of the shows that we do together. I did roastpagetti. Yeah,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to see some of us slide down.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Sadly for most of his slip yeah, okay, most of
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: his slip. I I honestly, I combined it with I
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: did case testing.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: It's so lame.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I put some spaghetti and sauce and through it at
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: a wall and then just regularly spaghetti.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: You were doing science, you were doing. Yeah, I got it.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of friends growing up.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: Is it though a?
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, is it really a decent way of checking
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: out whether your pasta is aldente? Seems to me like
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: you just pull a noodle and chomp on it. You know,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: you have to give Sully your walls. We'll leave the
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: walls out of it. I think if you get to
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: the point where you're throwing food at a wall. You've
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: made a couple missteps as a chef already, but it
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: has to originate from somewhere for it to have gotten
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: even to the point where people use it as kind
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: of an idiom for like trying out different ideas. Yeah, sorry,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: I'm getting this off track here because there's so much
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: to get into we can't really afford to to dilly
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: dally too much.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: But Ben, like you mentioned legends, pasta le legends.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so it is uh, it is true that this,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: like so many ancient practices, the origin story here does
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: descend into legend for centuries and centuries millennia, heck, millennia. Travelers, writers, cooks,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: poets have all created these homages to something like pasta,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and it's really difficult to differentiate such a simple, brilliant
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: idea from its cousins. But we know a lot about
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: references to stuff like pasta.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, Horace or depending if you want to be
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: He's he's a leading Roman poet during the reign of Augustus.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: He mentioned something in his writing is called legana anna.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: I don't know, man, it seems pretty close. Which were yeah, man,
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: they were fried though they were like fine thin thinly
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: rolled sheets of fried dough. Atheneus Athenaeus a Pheneus of
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Nocratis Nocritis I believe, also had a recipe for something
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: resembling leagania lagana, which he attributes to the first century.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: These names man, Chrysippus of Taiana, Tiana. Man, that's a
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: cool name, Chrysippus.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: I like that.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the same thing you were talking about. This one
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: specifically refers to sheets of dough made of a wheat
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: flour and the juice of crushed lettuce.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: No, you lost me. You lost juice of crushed lettuce.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: That is not how one uses lettuce properly.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Right, that's the new it to me, crush lettuce water.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's just weird. It's weird vegetable water. I don't
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: think there's any reason to do that. Let's just maybe
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: it was a water short issue.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: I don't know, who knows.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: But then you would flavor that with spices, and then
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: again to your point, you would fry it in some
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: kind of oil, usually oliver sunflower oil. If you look
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: at an early fifth century cookbook, you'll see another dish
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: called legana, and this one is layers of dough with
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: meat stuffed between it, So we already see the evolution
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: of your modern day microwavable Stofer's lichu for sure.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: I mean even even like a Greek Spanic copita, you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: kind of a spinach pie. I mean it is more
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: of elevened dough. But there there are lots of Greek
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: dishes that involve thin layers of dough that kind of
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: resemble a pasta bake, but they're a little bit of
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: a different consistency.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: And they're pain to make, you know, oil are they good?
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: And it is it's all about the spices. Like have
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: you ever had something called moussaka. That's something my mom
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: is a big fan of.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: It's an eggplant based kind of like casserole that is
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: a little eggy and also has like these really rich
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: kind of I think it's a clovy kind of thing,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: which is when I was younger, I wasn't a huge
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: fan of, but have grown very fond of, you know,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: in my twilight.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Yearslight Come on, man. We also want to give a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: shout out in advance to our pal Christopher Hasiotis, who
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: is of Greek descent and can actually cook some.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Of these things descended of Greek royalty. If I'm not mistaken,
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know. He just comes off very kingly to me.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: He has a regal air. He barely does.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: In the speaking of Greece in the second century a D.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Greek physician Galen mentioned something called ittrion, a homogeneous compound
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: made of you guessed it, folks, flour and water. If
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: you go to the Talmud you'll see the attrium is
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: described as a kind of boiled dough common in palisine
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: from the third to the fifth centuries a D. And
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: then you go to the ninth tree you see men
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: of letters like Isho bar Ali, an Arab physician who
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: talks about something he calls ittria with two y's, and
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: he says, these are string like shapes made of simolino flower.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: You dry them and then you cook them. So everybody's
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: kind of doing a dance around the concept of pasta.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: They just haven't discovered the word yet.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: Well, that's the thing.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: It really is just kind of a basic building block
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: of food, like a carrier or a medium of sorts.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Not to get too nerdy about synthesizers, Sorry, this is
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: nolal synthesizer corner. But like, the more I get into
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: learning about sound design and the construction of sound. It
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: all boils down, no pun intended to some very basic
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: fundamental building blocks of sound, and then it's all about
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: how you twist it up and like what filter you
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: put it through and how you kind of process It's
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: it's like the sine wave, you know, the square wave
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: or whatever. These are all things that more or less
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: exist in nature and then you kind of twist it
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: up and make something different out of it. That's how
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: cooking is. And this is like a basic sound wave
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: of cooking. To bring it back to cuisine. Yeah, I
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: got your back on that. Let's go one further.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I would on the on the benz Nerdy writing corner side,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I would say you could make a similar argument with
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: writing and cooking, right, because the English alphabet is just
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: a you know, it's less than thirty letters, and people
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: have changed the course of civilization depending on the order
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: of which they put those letters. Right, They've added some
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: sauce to the basic components. Right, So there's there's a
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: beauty to this.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: There's a sketch, an incredible sketch on Mitchell and Webb.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Look where it's sort of making fun of Gordon Ramsey
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: and he's he's basically, you know, torturing this poor young
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: chef by making him make this dish that he just.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: Doesn't have to do it. And he ultimately says, I'm
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: just not good at this.
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: Now you're better at cooking than me, and he goes,
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: it's just simple ingredients prepared, you know, fresh ingredients prepared,
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: simply goes Shakespeare is just pretty words in order, you know,
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: like we really.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: Do get down to, like the difference between something great
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: and something you know, horrible or mediocre that can contain
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: the same components. Is ephemeral and it's really hard to
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: put your finger on, but it is all still kind
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: of made of the same stuff.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Agreed, one million percent. Nobody checked my mauth also on
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: that we never want to miss an opportunity to mention
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Ephemeral The Fantastic Podcast by our pals Max Williams and
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams. One.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Surely there's discussion of pasta in the annals of Ephemeral.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: At least off air.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: It shouldn't go as a surprise given all of these
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: things we've we've mentioned thus far about this kind of
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: parallel thinking that people still to this very day. Uh,
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: It's a huge bone of contention as to where pasta
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: where noodles, Where this you know, culinary technology actually originated.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Was it born in China and then later brought to
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: Italy via the trade route the Silk Road, or did
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: it evolve independently and of course in parallel to its
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: grand Eastern rival, As I mentioned before, the humble rice noodle?
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: Dare we hazard a first guess by way of a.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Legend Marco Marco, Hello, fish out of water?
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: So I forget when you get out of the pool
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: and running over dangerous though, guys, no running around the pool.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: No no, and no sneaking around like a Skyrim player
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: tried to get your stealth archer stats up.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Also speaking of debunked myths, is that they find that
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: it's not really true that if you eat too close
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: to going in the pool you cramp up. Is that
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: is that an urban legend that's been debunked or is
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: that truth to that it's oversimplified?
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I I actually, oh man, nobody's ever going to see this,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: but I did. I did a series of video pilots
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: busting myths like that where I had wherein I had
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: to eat a huge like foot long public sandwich and
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: then immediately jump in water and try to swim.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Sorry for those that don't have publics, you did say
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: a public sandwich, not a public sandwich was available.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: Stone and finally, ain't it?
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I love it? Yeah, So that that truth. It's a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: it's a little or the urban legend, as you said,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: is a little oversimplified, but it is still helpful to people,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: and that's why it's stuck around for a while. Similar
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: to the legend that the fourteenth century traveler Marco Polo
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: from Venice. What you'll hear a lot similar. It's kind
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of like when people of past generations in the United
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: States were in grade school, they would hear that Christopher
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Columbus crystal ball cologne discovered America. Ah, hold the.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: Spoon, hold the macarone.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: There we go. Don't call it a comeback or do.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Because this is the end of part one of the
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Murky Origins of Pasta, and we will be returning very
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: soon with part two.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: You sure will.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: Man, what a ramp and more romping to come a
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: real role in the in the sauce lost sauce, not
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: unlike I'm scared and I need to you know, I
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: need help.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Where's where's an adult right, not on this show. No,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: that's for sure. So we also want to, of course
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: give a big, big thanks to our super producer, mister
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Max Williams. Max, you know this kind of might might
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: be a little bit of a torturous episode.
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, the problem I've run into is I
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: can't have gluten, but I also can't have like pea
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: protein and stuff like that, which is all in gluten
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: free pasta.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Gluten free pasta is actually worse for me than regular pasta.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: That's so weird, but I mean, I guess it makes sense,
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: so you.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Get yes, here, here's something that what you think about.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: To Max, this too shall pass?
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Duh, All things must pass.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: George Harrison, too shall past. Uh Ah.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Dot Wave is in the outro music.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Thanks also to Alex Williams, our composer for this Bangan soundtrack.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: We're gonna thank several other people of the way, but
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: also uh, Noel, thanks for thanks for not being mad
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: at me about that put talking about.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: I could never be mad at you, Ben, you gave
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: me the godfather kiss of death. I'm afeared of you,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: but I could never be mad. No, It's all brotherly
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: love here on ridiculous history. Huge thanks to Jonathan Strickman,
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: the quizz A, j Bahama's Jacobs, the Puzzler, and geez
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: who else.
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: Ben.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for this incredible research brief that you
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: poured your heart and soul, blood, sweat and tears into.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: It's a real romp and we're looking forward to getting
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: back into it just in a day or so for
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: these fine folks at home.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the beginning of the story, so tuned in.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: We'll also spoiler at the end of part two give
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: you some pretty promote cooking tips.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: That's right, We'll see you next time, folks. For more
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.