Noodle


Noodles are a type of food typically made from unleavened dough which is rolled flat and cut, stretched, or extruded into long strips or strings. Noodles are a staple food in many cultures and made into a variety of shapes. The most common noodles are those derived from Chinese cuisine or Italian cuisine. Italian noodles are generally referred to as pasta. In Chinese cuisine, the overarching term for noodles is 面, which refers specifically to dough-based noodles made from wheat or other grain-based dough. Chinese noodles also include another category, called 粉, which are not made by kneading dough but from a starch slurry, such as rice noodles, and cellophane noodles. These are not made from wheat dough, but are still regarded as noodles in English due to their physical form and culinary role.
While long, thin strips may be the most common, many varieties of noodles are cut into waves, helices, tubes, strings, or shells, or folded over, or cut into other shapes. Noodles are usually cooked in boiling water, sometimes with cooking oil or salt added. They can also be steamed, pan-fried, deep-fried, or baked. Noodles are often served with an accompanying sauce or in a soup, the latter being known as noodle soup. Noodles can be refrigerated for short-term storage or dried and stored for future use.

Etymology

The word for noodles in English was borrowed in the 18th century from the German word Nudel. The German word likely came from Knodel or Nutel, and referred to any dumpling, though mostly of wheat.
Colloquial uses for noodle to refer to someone's head, or to a "dummy" are unrelated, and likely came from the older English word ''noddle.''

History

Origin

The earliest written record of noodles is found in a book dated to the Eastern Han period, and describes a noodle soup dish called "tang bing". Noodles made from wheat dough became a prominent food for the people of the Han dynasty. The oldest evidence of noodles was from 4,000 years ago in China. In 2005, a team of archaeologists reported finding an earthenware bowl that contained 4,000-year-old noodles at the Lajia archaeological site, made by the Qijia culture. These noodles were said to resemble lamian, a type of Chinese noodle. 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. 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.
A homogenous mixture of flour and water called itrion was described by 2nd-century Greek physician Galen, among 3rd to 5th-century Jews itrium was described by the Jerusalem Talmud and itriyya, referred to string-like shapes made of semolina and dried before cooking - as defined by the 9th-century physician and lexicographer Isho bar Ali. According to National Geographic, many Italian writers have insisted pasta was enjoyed in pre-Roman Italy because a fourth century B.C. tomb had shown some resemblance to pasta-making equipment. However many food historians dispute this interpretation, and pointed out the scarcity of Roman-era references to anything resembling pasta, and believe that the dish instead first arrived in Italy as a "result of extensive Mediterranean trading in the Middle Ages". References to pasta dishes had only become increasingly frequent across the Italian peninsula from the 13th century.

Historical variations

East Asia

There are over 1,200 types of noodles commonly consumed in China today. They vary widely according to the region of production, ingredients, shape or width, and manner of preparation. Due to the vast diversity of Chinese noodles, there is no single Chinese word equivalent to the Western concept of "noodles," nor is the notion of "noodles" as a unified food category recognized within Chinese cuisine.
In Standard Mandarin, miàn means "dough" but can be used to refer to noodles made from wheat flour and grains such as millet, sorghum, and oats. Similarly, fěn means "powder" but can be used to refer to noodles made from other starches, particularly rice flour and mung bean starch.
Wheat noodles in Japan were adapted from a Chinese recipe as early as the 9th century. Innovations continued, such as noodles made with buckwheat were developed in the Joseon Dynasty of Korea. Ramen noodles, based on southern Chinese noodle dishes from Guangzhou but named after the northern Chinese lamian, became common in Japan after World War II.

Central Asia

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

West Asia

is one of the most popular dishes in some middle eastern countries such as Iran.
The Latinized word itrium referred to a kind of boiled dough. 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. Itriyya was also known by the Persian Jews during early Persian rule 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.

Europe

In the 1st century BCE, Horace wrote of fried sheets of dough called lagana. However, the cooking method does not correspond to the current definition of either a fresh or dry pasta product.

Italy

The first concrete information on pasta products in Italy dates back to the Etruscan civilization, the Testaroli. The first noodles will only appear much later, in the 10th or 11th centuries, and there is a popular legend about Marco Polo bringing the first pasta back from China. Modern historians do not give much credibility to the story and rather believe the first noodles were imported earlier from the Arabs, in a form called rishta. Pasta has taken on a variety of shapes, often based on regional specializations.

Germany

In Germany, documents dating from 1725 mention Spätzle. Medieval illustrations are believed to place this noodle at an even earlier date.

Armenia

An Armenian variety of noodle, Arishta, is prepared from wheat, water and salt. It is thick and is usually eaten with matzoon, clarified butter and garlic.
Polish Jews
Zacierki is a type of noodle found in Polish Jewish cuisine.
It was part of the rations distributed to Jewish victims in the Łódź Ghetto by the Nazis.
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.

Types by primary ingredient

Wheat

  • Arishta: Armenian thick noodles made from wheat, salt and water combined into stiff dough.
  • Bakmi: Indonesian Chinese yellow wheat noodles with egg and meat, usually pork. The Chinese word bak, which means "meat", is the vernacular pronunciation in Hokkien, but not in Teochew, suggesting an original Hokkien root. Mi derives from miàn. In Chinese, miàn refers to noodles made from wheat.
  • Chūka men : Japanese for "Chinese noodles", used for ramen, champon, and yakisoba
  • Kesme: flat, yellow or reddish brown Central Asian wheat noodles
  • Kalguksu : knife-cut Korean noodles
  • Lamian : hand-pulled Chinese noodles
  • Mee pok : flat, yellow Chinese noodles, common in Southeast Asia
  • Long Pasta: Italian noodles typically made from durum wheat
  • Reshte: Central Asian, flat noodle, very pale in colour used in Persian and Afghani cuisine
  • Sōmen : thin variety of Japanese wheat noodles, often coated with vegetable oil
  • Thukpa : flat Tibetan noodles
  • Udon : thicker variety of Japanese wheat noodles
  • Kishimen : flat variety of Japanese wheat noodles

    Rice

  • Bánh phở, thick fresh rice noodle used in popular Vietnamese phở noodles soup
  • Flat or thick rice noodles, also known as hé fěn or ho fun, kway teow or sen yai
  • Rice vermicelli: thin rice noodles, also known as mǐfěn or bee hoon or sen mee or "bún"
  • Sevai, a variant of rice vermicelli common in South India
  • Idiyappam is an Indian rice noodle
  • Mixian and migan noodles of southwest China
  • Khanom chin is a fermented rice noodle used in Thai cuisine

    Buckwheat

  • Makguksu : local specialty of Gangwon Province in South Korea
  • Memil naengmyeon : Korean noodles made of buckwheat, slightly more chewy than soba
  • Soba : Japanese buckwheat noodles
  • Pizzoccheri: Italian buckwheat tagliatelle from Valtellina, usually served with a melted cheese sauce

    Egg

Egg noodles are made of a mixture of egg and flour.
  • Youmian or thin noodles: Asian egg noodles common throughout China and Southeast Asia
  • Lokshen: wide egg noodles used in Eastern European Jewish cuisine
  • Kesme or erişte: Turkic egg noodles
  • Spätzle: Egg noodle generally associated with the southern German states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria
  • Certain egg-based long pasta, such as Tagliatelle, Fettuccine, and ''Pappardelle''

    Others

  • Acorn noodles, also known as dotori guksu in Korean, are made of acorn meal, wheat flour, wheat germ, and salt.
  • Olchaeng-i guksu, meaning tadpole noodles, are made of corn soup put through a noodle maker right into cold water. It was named for its features. These Korean noodles are mostly eaten in Gangwon-do.
  • Cellophane noodles are made from mung bean. These can also be made from potato starch, canna starch or various starches of the same genre.
  • Chilk naengmyeon : Korean noodles made of starch from kudzu root, known as kuzuko in Japanese, chewy and semitransparent.
  • Shirataki noodles : Japanese noodles made of konjac.
  • Kelp noodles, made from seaweed.
  • Mie jagung, Indonesian noodles made from corn starch.
  • Mie sagu, Indonesian noodles made from sagu.
  • Mie singkong or mie mocaf, Indonesian noodles made from cassava.