On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta / Jen Lin-Liu

Who hasn’t heard the story of Marco Polo bringing pasta to Italy from China? Well, apparently it’s a myth, thought up by a pasta company in early twentieth century America to popularize pasta in American kitchens. If not personally delivered by Marco Polo, pasta was nonetheless likely brought to Italy by merchants on the Silk Road, an important trading route that stretched from China to the Mediterranean.

The author sets out to travel the entire length of the route from the heartland of the Chinese noodle to the Italian province where ragu is expertly paired with a noodle like tagliatelle or pappardelle (and never spaghetti!). She investigates the noodly aspects of the current cuisine of each country she visits along the way, some of which do not seem to have maintained even a vestige of the versatile noodle.

From western China, across a couple of the former Soviet republics ending in -stan, Iran, Turkey, and finally Italy, Lin-Liu traces the historic route that pasta reportedly traversed. Her culinary experiences are not all mouth-wateringly good—some of the rice-based plovs or pilafs she has to endure in the middle of her trip make her wonder if it's all worth the effort. And where are those noodles? Sometimes they’re thin on the ground. Turkey’s extraordinary cuisine is the first sign that things are getting better, and then Italy proves itself to be the veritable foodies’ paradise we all knew it was, as evidenced by her many wonderful culinary adventures there.

The author includes a bit of history, some cultural observations, personal musings, etc., but this book is primarily about food. By the end of it, I was planning a foodie trip to some of the places she detailed.

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