It is presumed that as soon as ancient man has discovered flour, he has tried to use it in many ways as it was possible. One of these ways was to knead it with water and cook it in boiling water; this happened before discovering bread. Ancient Romans knew this kind of flour (they called it “puls” that gives name to actual “polenta”), made of legume flour, wheat, farro, various cereals as Plinio and Varrone state. The ate puls fabacea (broad beans polenta); puls Juliana (with brains and fennel’s seeds); puls tractogalata (with milk, honey and ham); and many more, as Apicio illustrates.
Sicilian people still eat this kind of puls.
As soon as puls disappeared (becoming feed for chickens and gooses), here we have, lagana (singular “laganum”), stripes made of flour and water. They were fried, roasted and finally added to vegetables and legumes soups. From these lagana (from greek “laganon”) develop the actual lasagne.
From this moment and during Middle Age pasta loses its meaning. The way to cook lasagne changed. They were no more fried or roasted before being eaten with soups, but cooked in boiling water. Here it is the first kind of home made pasta made from pastries. Obviously pasta was also made in other ways; probably because people had no time to cook, probably because they want to change the shape, probably by chance. It was made also like gnocchi, small balls or maccheroni.
Maccheroni and gnocchi for good cooking and by experience must be hollow, flat but also pierced because water should pass by through during boiling. So we have a very various equipment (thread, straw, knitting needle, combs, needles to ensure an appropriate shape; but it’s obviously hands and the particular movement of thumbs which give pasta the right shape. Here get their origin cavati, cavasunedda, fusiddi, gnòcculi, gnucchitti, pasta busiata, taccuna. We’ll meet them little by little and give them their exact meaning.
Also dry pasta with the shape of spaghetti or vermicelli is a Sicialian invention. If you’re not convinced you should just have a look in the “Ruggero’s Second Book” by the Arabian geographer Idrisi (1100-1165) who worked to King Ruggero. During one of his journey in Sicily he wrote the diary, and at page 38 we can read “In the western side of Termini there’s a pretty town called Trabia. It’s rich of streams and mills, a very beautiful plain and huge farms where vermicelli is produced in such a great amount to supply not only the Calabria but also the Christian and Muslim territories where they send conspicuous loads”.
The original term for vermicelli in Arab was “tria” or “od ytria” or “ytria”. This term is still alive in the Palermitan and Trapanese dialects and in Traina Sicilian vocabulary it is defined as “Tool for pasta makers for making a kind of vermicelli and other kind of pasta”. Another note deals with the industrial pasta; till 1800 pasta was home made in apposite “scanaturi” where it was kneaded, rolled out and cut with different length and width (for example, lasagne); or even more, small cubes were taken from the dough and rubbed on a particular table with hands making this way ditali, small maccheroni and so on. This pasta was put on the market especially in other areas, while families kept making pasta little by little at home. In 1840, in Sicily, the first machine with press in Italy; pasta makers called it, you can guess why, “ingegno” (trick) or “arbitrio”.
In the previous chapter and in this one, there’ve been illustrated various types of pasta, different for cut, shape, design; the list of these types is so long, but honestly only a few names are still alive, the others were forgotten. It’s worth considering them in order to leave a trace of them. Let’s start from pasta d’arbitriu, generic name to indicate the dry pasta made by a specific tool called “arbitrio”. Fidillini, similar to actual capellini, rounded, long, full, very thin. Tria bastarda, long and rounded but larger than capellini, while virmiceddi di tria are much larger than capellini. According to the diameter, filàtu (vermicelli) and filàtu cu lu purtùsu, vermicelli with a hole. Then among dry pasta (short type) there’s attuppatéddi, similar to maltagliati, which take this name because they look like snails; cannizzòlu, maccheroni as large as a middle finger; stidduzza (little star), classical soup with small pasta for children; and even more for soups linqua di pàssiru (sparrow’s tongue) and pirticunédda , similar for its shape to shots. Here they are magghiétti, small and smooth maccheroni; jiritalédda, similar to actual ditalini. Respectively they take the name of avemarie and paternostri, if bigger. The last type of pasta is gànghi (or ànghi) di vecchia that means “big teeth of a old woman”. It’s bent like a spoon, and ruled. Today the modern pasta industry has converted the name into “horse’s teeth”. Finally I want to mention the name of some home made pasta that have been forgotten even by the old people. Turciniatéddi, for example, similar to cavati: they are made with an capable movement of fingers so that they are like twisted (that’s why they’re also called “ritorti”). We also have flour gnocchetti: in dialecy they’re called spizziéddi that is small spices because they’re small like pepper grains. And finally, huge gnocchi, also called orìcchi di Judèu, Juda’s ears.
