Staple food made from unleavened dough, commonly long and thin
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Noodles are a type of
food made from
unleavened dough which is either rolled flat and cut, stretched, or extruded, into long strips or strings. Noodles are a
staple food in many cultures and made into a variety of shapes. The most common noodles are either those derived from
Chinese cuisine or
Italian cuisine.
While long, thin strips may be the most common, many varieties of noodles are cut into waves, helices, tubes, strings, or shells, or folded over, or cut into other shapes. Noodles are usually cooked in boiling water, sometimes with cooking oil or salt added. They are often pan-fried or deep-fried. Noodles are often served with an accompanying sauce or in a soup. Noodles can be refrigerated for short-term storage or dried and stored for future use.
Etymology
The word for noodles in English was borrowed in the 18th century from the
German word Nudel (German:[ˈnuːdl̩]ⓘ).[2] The German word likely came from Knodel or Nutel, and referred to any dumpling, though mostly of wheat.[3]
Colloquial uses for noodle to refer to someone's head, or to a "dummy" are unrelated, and likely came from the older English word, noddle.[3]
History
Origin
The earliest written record of noodles is found in a book dated to the
Eastern Han period (25–220 CE).[1] Noodles made from wheat dough became a prominent food for the people of the
Han dynasty.[4] The oldest evidence of noodles was from 4,000 years ago in China.[1] In 2005, a team of archaeologists reported finding an earthenware bowl that contained 4000-year-old noodles at the
Lajia archaeological site.[5] These noodles were said to resemble
lamian, a type of Chinese noodle.[5] Analyzing the husk
phytoliths and
starch grains present in the sediment associated with the noodles, they were identified as millet belonging to Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica.[5] However, other researchers cast doubt that Lajia's noodles were made from specifically millet: it is difficult to make pure millet noodles, it is unclear whether the analyzed residue were directly derived from Lajia's noodles themselves, starch morphology after cooking shows distinctive alterations that does not fit with Lajia's noodles, and it is uncertain whether the starch-like grains from Laijia's noodles are starch as they show some non-starch characteristics.[6]
Food historians generally estimate that pasta's origin is from among the Mediterranean countries:[7] a homogenous mixture of flour and water called itrion as described by 2nd-century Greek physician
Galen,[8] among 3rd to 5th-century Jews as itrium as described by the
Jerusalem Talmud[9] and as itriyya (Arabic cognate of the Greek word), string-like shapes made of
semolina and dried before cooking as defined by the 9th-century Aramean physician and lexicographer Isho bar Ali.[10]
Historical variations
East Asia
There are over 1,200 types of noodles commonly consumed in China today.[11] Due to the vast diversity of Chinese noodles available, there is no unifying Chinese word for the Western concept of "noodles". In
Mandarin, miàn (simplified Chinese: 面; traditional Chinese: 麵) refers to noodles made from wheat flour and grains such as millet, sorghum. and oats. While fěn (粉) refers to noodles made from other starches, particularly rice flour and mung bean starch.[12]
Wheat noodles in Japan (udon) were adapted from a
Chinese recipe as early as the 9th century. Innovations continued, such as noodles made with
buckwheat (naengmyeon) were developed in the
Joseon Dynasty of
Korea (1392–1897).
Ramen noodles, based on southern Chinese noodle dishes from
Guangzhou but named after the northern Chinese
lamian, became common in Japan by 1900.[13][14][15][16]
Ash reshteh (noodles in thick soup with herbs) is one of the most popular dishes in some middle eastern countries such as Iran, which was brought through
Turco-Mongol.
Europe
In the 1st century
BCE,
Horace wrote of fried sheets of dough called lagana.[17] However, the cooking method does not correspond to the current definition of either a fresh or dry
pasta product.[18]
Italy
The first concrete information on
pasta products in
Italy dates back to the
Etruscan civilization, the
Testaroli. The first noodles will only appear much later, in the 10th or 11th centuries,[19] and there is a popular legend about
Marco Polo bringing the first pasta back from China. Modern historians do not give much credibility to the story and rather believe the first noodles were imported earlier from the Arabs, in a form called rishta.[20] Pasta has taken on a
variety of shapes, often based on regional specializations.
Germany
In
Germany, documents dating from 1725 mention Spätzle.
Medieval illustrations are believed to place this noodle at an even earlier date.[21]
Ancient Israel and diaspora
The Latinized word itrium referred to a kind of boiled dough.[8] Arabs adapted noodles for long journeys in the fifth century, the first written record of dry
pasta.
Muhammad al-Idrisi wrote in 1154 that itriyya was manufactured and exported from
Norman Sicily. Itriya was also known by the
Persian Jews during early Persian rule (when they spoke
Aramaic) and during Islamic rule. It referred to a small soup noodle, of Greek origin, prepared by twisting bits of kneaded dough into shape, resembling Italian
orzo.[22]
Polish Jews
Zacierki is a type of noodle found in
Polish Jewish cuisine.[23]
It was part of the rations distributed to
Jewish victims in the
Łódź Ghetto by the
Nazis.
(Out of the "major ghettos", Łódź was the most affected by hunger, starvation and malnutrition-related deaths.)
The diary of a young Jewish girl from Łódź recounts a fight she had with her father over a spoonful of zacierki taken from the family's meager supply of 200 grams a week.[24][25]
Bakmi: Indonesian Chinese yellow wheat noodles with egg and meat, usually pork. The Chinese word bak (肉), which means "meat" (or more specifically pork), is the vernacular pronunciation in Hokkien, but not in Teochew (which pronounced it as nek), suggesting an original Hokkien root. Mi derives from miàn. In Chinese, miàn (simplified Chinese: 面; traditional Chinese: 麵; often transliterated as "mien" or "mein") refers to noodles made from wheat.
Acorn noodles, also known as dotori guksu (도토리국수) in Korean, are made of
acorn meal, wheat flour, wheat germ, and salt.
Olchaeng-i guksu, meaning tadpole noodles, are made of
corn soup put through a noodle maker right into cold water. It was named for its features. These
Korean noodles are mostly eaten in
Gangwon-do.
Baked noodles: Boiled and drained noodles are combined with other ingredients and
baked. Common examples include many
casseroles.
Basic noodles: These are cooked in water or broth, then drained. Other foods can be added or the noodles are added to other foods (see
fried noodles) or the noodles can be served plain with a dipping sauce or oil to be added at the table. In general, noodles are soft and absorb flavors.
Chilled noodles: noodles that are served cold, sometimes in a salad. Examples include
Thai glass noodle salad and cold
udon.
Dickie, John (1 October 2010). Delizia! The Epic History of Italians and Their Food (Paper). New York: Atria Books.
ISBN0743278070.
Errington, Frederick et al. eds. The Noodle Narratives: The Global Rise of an Industrial Food into the Twenty-First Century (U. of California Press; 2013) 216 pages; studies three markets for instant noodles: Japan, the United States, and Papua New Guinea.
Rodinson, Maxime; Perry, Charles; Arberry, Arthur J. (2001). Medieval Arab Cookery (Hardback). United Kingdom: Prospect Books. p. 253.
ISBN0907325912.
Sinclair, Thomas R.; Sinclair, Carol Janas (2010). Bread, beer, and the seeds of change: Agriculture's imprint on world history. Wallingford: CABI. p. 91.
ISBN978-1-84593-704-1.