The Real History of Pasta

In 2002, archaeologists working in the dusty highlands of Qinghai Province in northwestern China flipped over an upside-down earthenware bowl that had been resting on the floor of an ancient settlement for roughly four thousand years. Inside that bowl sat a tangle of perfectly preserved noodles—yellow, thin, about ten centimeters long—looking as though somebody had just finished cooking lunch and stepped out for a minute. The settlement, called Lajia, had been destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake and mudslide that sealed everything underneath a thick layer of sediment, creating an oxygen-free pocket that preserved organic materials that should have rotted away centuries ago. When the archaeologists analyzed the noodles, they discovered something that upended everything food historians thought they knew: these noodles weren't made from wheat, but from millet—two kinds, broomcorn and foxtail—both of which contain no gluten whatsoever. Somebody four thousand years ago had figured out how to make noodles from a grain that modern food scientists initially insisted was impossible to work with. This single discovery, made during what was supposed to be a routine excavation, more or less detonated the entire field of noodle history.

The Chemistry of Noodles