Noodle

Noodles are a type of food made from unleavened dough which is rolled flat and cut, stretched or extruded, into long strips or strings. Noodles can be refrigerated for short-term storage or dried and stored for future use.

Noodles are usually cooked in boiling water, sometimes with cooking oil or salt added. They are also often pan-fried or deep-fried. Noodle dishes can include a sauce or noodles can be put into soup. The material composition and geocultural origin is specific to each type of a wide variety of noodles. Noodles are a staple food in many cultures (see Chinese noodles, Japanese noodles, Korean noodles, Filipino noodles, Vietnamese noodles, and Italian pasta).

The word was derived in the 18th century from the German word Nudel.[1]

The earliest written record of noodles is found in a book dated to the Eastern Han period (25–220 CE).[2] Noodles made from wheat dough became a prominent food for the people of the Han dynasty.[3] The oldest evidence of noodles was from 4,000 years ago in China.[2] In 2005, a team of archaeologists reported finding an earthenware bowl that contained 4000-year-old noodles at the Lajia archaeological site.[4] These noodles were said to resemble lamian, a type of Chinese noodle.[4] 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.[4] 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.[5]

Food historians generally estimate that pasta's origin is from among the Mediterranean countries:[6] a homogenous mixture of flour and water called itrion as described by 2nd century Greek physician Galen,[7] among 3rd to 5th century Palestinians as itrium as described by the Jerusalem Talmud[8] 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.[9]

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.[citation needed ]

Kesme or Erishte noodles were eaten by Turkic peoples by the 13th century.

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.

In the 1st century BCE, Horace wrote of fried sheets of dough called lagana.[10] However, the cooking method doesn't correspond to the current definition of either a fresh or dry pasta product.[11]

The first concrete information on pasta products in Italy dates to the 13th or 14th centuries.[12] Pasta has taken on a variety of shapes, often based on regional specializations.

In the area that would become Germany, documents dating from 1725 mention Spätzle. Medieval illustrations are believed to place this noodle at an even earlier date.[13]

The Latinized word itrium referred to a kind of boiled dough.[7] 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.[14]

Zacierki is a type of noodle found in Polish Jewish cuisine.[15] 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.[16][17]

Egg noodles are made of a mixture of egg and flour.

Idiyappam, Indian rice noodles

Mixian (米线) rice noodles being cooked in copper pots (铜锅), China

Wide, uncooked egg noodles

Some different types of noodles commonly found in Southeast Asia