Oodles of Noodles

1940 BC

Xia Dynasty, China

In 2005, an overturned bowl of noodles, made of two kinds of millet grain, were found buried under three metres of sediment in northwestern China at the Lajia archaeological site.

Millet is a grain indigenous to China and was first cultivated as much as 7,000 years ago. Some of the earliest evidence of millet cultivation in China has been found in Cishan, northern China, where proso millet husk phytoliths and biomolecular components identified to be around 8,700 to 10,300 years old were discovered in storage pits, along with the remains of pit-houses, pottery, and stone tools related to millet cultivation. The unearthing of these noodles also proves that the conversion of ground millet flour into dough that could be repeatedly stretched into long, thin strands for the preparation of boiled noodles was already established in this region four millennia ago.

200

Greece

Greek physician Galen mentions itrion, homogeneous compounds made of flour and water. The Jerusalem Talmud also recorded that itrium, a kind of boiled dough and probably its successor, was common in Palestine from the third to the fifth centuries AD.

900

Japan

Udon is adapted from a Chinese recipe by a Buddhist monk.

AD 25–220

Han Dynasty, China

The earliest written record of noodles appears in a third century Chinese dictionary. It describes a dough made from flour and water, which is then torn into pieces and added to soup called mian pian. This dish is still eaten in China today.

100

Roman Empire, Italy

Fine sheets of fried dough, or lagana, appeared in the works of Horace, who was the leading Roman lyric poet under Augustus’ rule.