[Sca-cooks] paella

[Terry Decker]

You are making an unwarranted assumption that pasta was first prepared in 
Italy, then spread elsewhere.  Pasta may have been independently discovered 
in one or more places in Europe or it may have been introduced from China 
during the Mongol Invasions of the 12th and 13th Centuries or possibly even 
from the Arabs who had contact with the Chinese.  It may even have been, as 
you suggest, an Italian invention.  We don't know.  It definitely predates 
the late 13th Century in Italy (given Marco Polo's comments).

It appears in English cookbooks of the 14th Century, so I have little doubt 
that it was in France and Spain by that time.

Bear
.
> I tend to believe noodles would have been a more modern adaptation. Less 
> likely to be period then say rice or peas, beans.  Not sure how fast 
> noodles would have spread form Italy into the Iberian peninsula.
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> Cealian Of Moray