[PW] Marco Polo and pasta

[S M Colowick]

About 40 years ago a family friend claimed to have seen a movie in
which Marco Polo saw spaghetti growing on trees in China and said, "In
Italy we call it spaghetts!" We didn't believe our friend (she was
prone to invent such stories), but after reading descriptions of some
of the bio-pics listed at IMDB, I now suspect that the scene really
took place. Can anyone confirm this and name the film? It might have
been "The Adventures of Marco Polo" starring Gary Cooper, or maybe the
1956 film of the same name (a musical version co-written by Neil
Simon). At any rate, this scene would seem to suggest that Italians
already had some form of pasta.

Susie

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 7:11 AM, Fuller, Thomas (US - Washington D.C.)
<tfuller at deloitte.com> wrote:

> The notion that Mr. Polo
> introduced pasta to the Italians from his travels in China is of long
> vintage and is, at the very least, open to question.