What did Marco Polo Eat?

Marco Polo Traveling (source)

What did Marco Polo eat? If you google this question, the first answer is "PASTA"!! Well, he probably did eat pasta in his early life in Venice, where he was born in 1254 -- it was one of the foods that made up the Italian diet then, though not a major element of the cuisine of that time. He probably ate several varieties of noodles or filled pasta during his 17 years at the Emperor's court in China. Between the 1270s and around 1292 when he left China, pasta was a very well developed culinary specialty there, though rice then as now was the staple food. And Marco Polo likely ate a bit more pasta after he returned to Venice in the mid 1290s and until his death in 1324. Marco Polo didn't need to bring pasta from China to the Italian peninsula as the popular misconception has it -- it was already there.

Marco Polo's Travels -- from Encyclopedia Brittanica. It would be fascinating to know about all the foods he tried
as he visited so many exotic locations. However, his travel narrative has virtually no food descriptions.

The Chinese Song Dynasty (960-1279) fell to Kublai Khan, leader of the vast Mongol Empire after a long era of fighting. This final takeover was immediately before Marco Polo arrived, and thus his contacts were with this famous emperor, founder of the Yuan Dynasty.  The invaders introduced new kinds of foods including many developments in the types of pasta that were prepared by Chinese cooks. Here is a summary from the book Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food:

"Considered a specialty of northern China, wheat-flour pasta was later widely adopted throughout the Yangzi basin in the wake of the political turmoil that followed the steady inroads of the Mongols beginning in the tenth century that culminated in the fall of the capital in 1179. In the culinary cross-pollinizing that followed, the array of pasta products broadened considerably. Pasta also became a more refined foodstuff, requiring new techniques that made it possible to create extremely thin sheets of dough. At the same time, the culinary preparations, which had become exceedingly varied, began to incorporate many of the finest ingredients found in a southern climate." (p. 315)

Wheat production in China had increased during the previous century because the last stand of the Song Dynasty (the Southern Song) included tax incentives to grow more of it. In the ancient capital, Kaifeng, pasta shops sold wheat pasta and other foods, including dishes like “three-freshness noodles” and “minced chicken noodles.” Stuffed pasta of that time is a predecessor of today’s tiny dumplings cooked in broth, that is, wonton. Condiments and flavorings for pasta included sesame or almond paste, meat broth, fermented milk, cucumber in soy sauce, eggplant, ginger, scallions, chives, sugar, vinegar, tofu, and various pickles. (p. 317-319)

Less detailed evidence about pasta in Italy in Marco Polo’s lifetime is available, although there are a number of references to vermicelli in documents beginning in the late Roman era.The main written evidence of pasta in Italy in Marco Polo’s time is a will that made a bequest of pasta to one of the heirs. Trade in pasta and related wheat products is reflected in contracts between Genoa and various northern Italian cities. Although some dried pasta suitable for shipping was produced in the age of Marco Polo, most pasta was made in small shops and sold fresh.

Everyone has heard the claim that Marco Polo brought pasta from China to Italy, and thus to the West. The source of this patently false idea is a single “fable” which appeared in 1929 in Macaroni Journal, a publication dedicated to the advancement of the American macaroni (that is, pasta) industry. The language of this silly little article is the language of fairy tales, and the anonymous author was clearly making a joke. The boat on which Marco Polo was traveling, says the fable, stopped for provisions and a sailor named Spaghetti (ha ha) went ashore where he found people cooking — yes — spaghetti. Note: The word spaghetti means little strings, in case you were wondering. The transformation of this fable into a widespread belief about culinary history appears to be a mystery. You can find a facsimile of the journal online here: 1929 Macaroni Journal, page 32.

Oh, yes, another important question: Did Marco Polo bring the idea for ice cream back from China? No. Frozen desserts like ice cream had been popular with wealthy diners in Italy since Roman times. Although he and his family were prosperous merchants, I don’t know if they had the resources to eat it, however. Maybe he did eat it at the court of the Great Khan!

Two wonderful foods, ice cream and pasta -- how could we think the very skilled Italian cooks wouldn't have developed these treats by the end of the 13th century?  All of us who are living through the current global emergency probably have a new appreciation for them. After all, pasta was one of the first commodities to disappear from grocery shelves when panic buying set in. And I bet you are like me in isolation from the pandemic and therefore really sad that one can't go to Ben and Jerry's or another ice cream shop for a treat these days.

Source for the history of pasta in China and Italy is Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food 
by Silvano Serventi and Francoise Sabban, English translation published 2002.
This blog post copyright © 2020 by mae sander for maefood dot blogspot dot com.