I refer to Cecil’s column http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_102.html which had a throw-away line about the Romans of Claudius’s time eating pasta.
I thought spaghetti wasn’t seriously taken up by the Romans until about 1000 years ago? Either by getting the idea from the Chinese or a parallel evolution at home?
Reading Tacitus I only see references to bread, not pasta.
The equipment described sounds pretty handy for making bread.
Don’t you have any harder (ha ha) evidence, such as fossilised macaroni, or even better a recipe using it? All my Roman recipe books use bread, wine, fish and oil. etc Check out http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/ethnic/ancient-rome/index.html for recipes from MARCUS GAVIUS APICIUS: DE RE COQUINARIA
According to this page, which seems pretty comprehensive, the ancient laganum (mentioned in De Re Coquinaria) was the ancestor of lasagne. However, my Latin dictionary defines laganum as a small “cake” of oil and flour.
I don’t exactly feel like this has been yet settled by the cites given. I’m with JezzaOZ in thinking that the equipment as described in the cite by colibri seems to be just as good for making bread.
I’d also like to know what Cecil meant when he said that Cicero ate pasta, did he meant that there is a reference to pasta in Cicero’s writings?
I think that the Italians probably did have pasta before Marco Polo, but I’d like stronger evidence than that provided.