Most people know the story of Venetian explorer Marco Polo bringing noodles back home from China. It’s a fun story, but it’s also inaccurate: Pasta was already popular in Italy by the time Marco Polo made his famous voyage to China at the end of the 13th century.
And while the Chinese may have been enjoying noodles for thousands of years before pasta first landed in Italy, that doesn’t necessarily mean the dish took a direct route from one country to the other. Some historians credit pasta’s arrival in Italy to Arab groups, who likely also shared their technique for drying it—which they developed as a preservation method on long journeys.
