Home → Food History → Marco Polo and His Chinese Pasta: Legend or Fact?

Marco Polo and His Chinese Pasta: Legend or Fact?

by

Most people believe that Marco Polo brought noodles back to Italy from China, thus bringing the concept of pasta with him. The great Venetian explorer/merchant is said to have discovered much during his fabled visits to China, and that without him, Italy would not have developed the pasta it is famed for today. To be more specific, the legend is that he brought back macaroni, which is today a generic term for all dried alimentary pastas made from hard wheat (which the Chinese did not cultivate or consume). The idea is that he brought back dried “filamentous” pasta or noodles. If this is legend instead of fact, why would such a legend have been created? The answer is very simple.

travels of Marco Polo

There are only two areas in the world where noodles, in the time after Polo, were a staple food. China and her Far East neighbors, and Italy.

Everything in between the huge land of Eurasia…no noodles. It stands to reason, therefore, that there must be some connection between the noodles of Asia and the noodles of Italy. And the only obvious connection is Marco Polo. In case you didn’t already know, Italy absolutely does not embrace the legend of Marco Polo and his pasta.

The Man and the Myth: Polo’s Life in China

Marco Polo traveled to China around 1271 and returned around 1292. He was a big deal in China, or so he claimed. He even served as an adviser to the Yuan Emperor Kubla Khan and visited other parts of the country as an official of the emperor, had his own penthouse apartment in the palace, complete with big screen TV and an indoor swimming pool. 

According to Marco Polo’s writing, the first part of this statement is true, he was an “official” of the Emperor, traveled throughout the country in that official capacity, and had his own quarter in the palace. There is no historical evidence to confirm this account, however. After his travels he became a prisoner of war in Genoa, where he wrote a book called “Description of the World” (Divasament dou Monde), which we know today at The Travels of Marco Polo.

Another “Chinese” Export Myth If you think the story of pasta coming from China is wild, wait until you see where Ketchup actually started. It wasn’t a tomato in sight, and it definitely didn’t start in a Heinz bottle. Read: The Surprising Fishy Origin of Ketchup

Lost in Translation: What the Manuscripts Actually Say

In the book he mentions noodles and some have used this as evidence that he brought them back with him from China, having discovered this new kind of food there. But the actual passages seem to suggest that he was already well familiar with this kind of food, and was describing the Chinese noodles based on the pasta he already knew from home.

He wrote of the grains that were in use in China at the time, saying that rice, panicum, and millet were a much more efficient source of food, wheat not having the yield of the other grains. Bread, he said, was not in use, and wheat “is only eaten in the form of vermicelli or of pastry. Other translations are possible, such as vermicelli and pastes of that description, macaroni and other viands made of dough, or noodles and other pasty foods.

Whatever the precise translation, it seems that Polo was describing something for which he already had ready names for and something that was nothing new at all to him.

Wait, is Fresh Pasta a Rule? You’ve heard that Italians turn their noses up at the dried stuff in boxes, right? It turns out the “Fresh is Best” obsession is mostly a misunderstanding. Read: Do Italians Really Only Eat Fresh Pasta?

But this was translated from an Italian edition of the work by Ramusio, and the reference to ‘vermicelli’ may have been a liberty. Pasta and noodles are not the same thing, as most people assume. So the question is, was Polo supposed to have brought back noodles, or pasta? It seems from his writings, in truth, that he made no special case about noodles, but mentioned eating several pasta dishes.

The “Bread Tree” Mystery

He seems to have been more fascinated by what he called a ‘bread tree’ which bore a fruit from which the Chinese made a meal that was similar to Barley, from which a pasta was made. He reported it as excellent, and brought samples back to Venice, but it did not take off there.

Evidence of Pasta Long Before Polo

Whether Polo knew of noodles is unclear, but he does not seem to have made any special mention of filamentous noodles, nor did he find the idea of doughs of this type to be anything new. There are also written reports of “a food made from flour in the form of strings” in Sicily, described by an Arab traveler named Idrisi in 1154, well before Marco Polo’s travels. There were even noodles called Rishta in the Middle East in those times, a food of Persian origin.

The Great Pasta Showdown Is fresh pasta actually “superior,” or have we been sold a culinary myth? Discover why dried pasta isn’t just a cheap alternative—it’s a scientific marvel. Read: Is Fresh Pasta Actually Superior to Dried?

Also, at the Spaghetti Museum in Pontedassio, Imperia, there are several documents from 1440, 1279, and 1284, which refer to pasta, maccheroni, and vermicelli as known foods well before Marco Polo’s return in 1292. There is simply no truth at all to the legend that Marco Polo brought noodles back from China.

We don’t know whether “filamentous noodles” were an indigenous invention in Italy, or whether they came from the Middle East. We also do not know why only in Italy, and not in any other country in Europe or the Mediterranean, did they become a staple in the diet.

The Silk Road and the Arab Influence

The idea of these noodles may have traveled along the Silk Road from Central Asia to Bukhara in the Middle East, where the risthta were known. It is also likely that these noodles were introduced to Italy by Arabs when they dominated Sicily.

Although I certainly do not mean this post to be a treatise on the history of pasta, it is not such a big stretch to imagine lasagna, baked in the oven with a little liquid, becoming lasagna cut into strips and boiled in water or milk, to then become more refined doughs for this purpose, which then became dried pastas.

What’s in a Name? Just as Marco Polo didn’t name pasta, the “Kiwi” didn’t start out with that name either. It underwent a massive rebrand to escape its original (and much less appetizing) identity. Read: How the Kiwi Fruit Got Its Name

The Culinary Match: Pasta Meets the Tomato

Noodles did not become such a huge hit in Italy until around when the New World was “discovered” and with it, that fruit we now associate with Italian pasta dishes: the tomato.

It was a match made in heaven and even though mass production had been available, through the 15th century Tagliatele press, it did not keep well.

From Peasant Food to Commercial Success

It was not until the 18th century that the process was perfected to dry the noodles to a state that could be stored for long periods, even up to two years, so that dried macaroni and vermicelli products became a commercial success.

That is not to say that dried pasta had not existed before, in fact, according to some, pasta secca had existed in Italy up to a century before Polo’s birth. However, pasta was not always considered fine dining, but instead, a peasant dish that haughty city dwellers may have turned their nose up to.

The pasta press and the drying process, therefore, made pasta important during lean economic times, and during the 17th century when there was overcrowding and problems with food distribution and availability, pasta became an important staple to feed poorer city dwellers.

That and tomato sauce brought spaghetti into its own, as grated cheese had already been used as a principal topping and flavoring for cheap pasta dishes, but once combined with tomato sauce, which was first introduced at the end of the 1700s and was firmly established by the 1820s, things really took off. Tomatoes were a much more accessible ingredient than meat sauce (ragù).

Another Famous Origin Lie If you think Marco Polo and Pasta is a big legend, wait until you find out which country didn’t invent German Chocolate Cake. (Hint: It’s the one in the name.) Read: Does German Chocolate Cake Really Come From Germany?

Marco Polo really had nothing to do with all of this. In his book, he simply seems to have been comparing a dish he experienced in China to macaroni.

He may have brought back samples, but he certainly did not bring back a hard wheat dried pasta, as so many people have envisioned. Too bad, for it was a great story.

A Couple Notes on the ‘Travels of Marco Polo’

Many scholars do not take the book seriously at all. And although Marco Polo became famous in his own lifetime through the grand tales he told, he himself wasn’t necessarily taken seriously, either. There is a story about children following him around saying, “Messer Polo, tell us another lie.”

There is not a trace of Polo’s original manuscript, whether in his own hand or as recounted to his fellow prisoner in Genoa. All the 150 or so manuscripts we know are third-hand, and they often differ from one another greatly. It is highly doubtful that he was the great influential adviser and emissary of the Khan that he claimed to be, although he may have been a minor civil servant.

Marco Polo Failed to Mention the Great Wall and Chopsticks

It seems that he became very immersed in Mongol culture, but they did not even eat noodles. When it comes to the book, many people have asked, if Polo traveled so extensively throughout China, why did he never mention the Great Wall? Seems hard to leave out of a tale of the great land. Did he ever even go there?  There is room for doubt. Along with leaving out the Great Wall, as a “foodie,” it’s bizarre that he never mentions people eating with chopsticks. He describes the food and the banquets but leaves out the most famous utensil in the world.

The Tea Ceremony and Foot Binding

He spent 17 years in China but never mentioned the most ubiquitous social custom: tea. He also never remarked on the practice of foot binding, which was common among the upper-class Chinese women he would have encountered at court. Footbinding would certainly be memorable.

Silence on the Printing Press

Polo describes paper money in great detail, but he completely fails to mention the woodblock printing technology used to create it. For a European from a pre-Gutenberg world, a machine that could mass-produce text should have been a miracle worth noting.

There are, in fact, a great many remarkable things that Polo fails to mention.

Chinese and Mongol Records are Silent on Polo

There is also no mention of Marco Polo in any surviving Mongol or Chinese records. Many of the inaccuracies in his book could be attributed to third-hand translations, but there are so many problems, that some historians think that he may never have actually made it to China, but instead, according to one source, “picked up second-hand stories of China, Japan and the Mongol Empire from Persian merchants he met on the shores of the Black Sea, thousands of miles short of the Orient…then cobbled them together with other scraps of information for what became a best-selling account, A Description of the World, one of the first travel books.”

📚 Further Food History Mysteries