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The History of the Noodle

Noodle: A very long, thin strip of pasta or similar flour paste, eaten with a sauce or in a soup.
Origin: Late eighteenth century from the German term nudel.

The exact origin of noodles seems to be clouded in mystery and has been the subject of much debate. Indeed, whole books have been devoted to the subject of this much-loved food, which is essentially a starch-based dough, sold in a variety of shapes and thicknesses, some in coils, others in bundles.

Whether the Italian merchant traveler Marco Polo was responsible for bringing noodles from China to Italy via the Silk Road remains unproven, but their evolution is an interesting one.

What seems certain is that the ancestor to the noodle was not called “noodle.” In the Eastern Han Dynasty, “cake” is the original term associated with anything made with flour and water, and initially it was not formed into the string-like pieces that we think of as noodles.

In the third century AD, a Chinese dictionary refers to them as mian pian, or “little pieces of bread dough,” and in the Hebrew Talmud of the fifth century AD there are references to a food resembling a noodle in shape made from semolina called itrium.

In 2002, archeologists made a fascinating discovery at the Lajia excavations near the Yellow River (or Huang He) in northwest China, where the oldest-known noodles were found. Using carbon dating, they have been placed at about 4,000 years old. They were preserved in a sealed, overturned bowl buried under ten feet of sediment. The yellow noodles were long and thin and thought to be made by hand-stretching the dough, showing a high level of culinary sophistication. Interestingly, they were found to be derived from two types of millet: foxtail and broomcorn, both of which were indigenous to China and widely cultivated 7,000 years ago.

The earliest mention of noodles dates back to a book in China’s Eastern Han Dynasty between AD 25 and 200, when they were often made from wheat dough. It’s thought they were a staple in the diets of many in that period.

While the Arabs, Chinese, and Italians all lay claim to noodles, it seems certain that the Italians should be credited with spreading their popularity throughout the world.

Instant noodles were first marketed in Japan in 1958, when it was discovered that drying fresh noodles and then flash-frying them prolonged their shelf life.