Macaroni

For other uses, see Macaroni (disambiguation)

Close-up photo of a handful of macaroni.

Macaroni is typically machine-made dry commercial pasta, used in contrast to fresh pasta made at home or in small local businesses. Macaroni technically must not contain eggs. Although usually commercially made, some more advanced home machines do allow for the fresh creation of macaroni pasta.

Macaroni is a corruption of the Italian word maccherone and its plural maccheroni. Its etymology is debatable. Some scholars think it's related to Greek makaria, a kind of barley broth. Others think it comes from Italian maccare, "to bruise or crush" (referring to the crushing of the wheat to make the pasta), which comes, in turn, from Latin macerare.

Thomas Jefferson is credited with introducing the first macaroni machine in the United States, in 1789, when he returned home after serving as ambassador to France. He said that Daniel Paese taught him all he learned about this machine. The word macaroni was already familiar in the U.S. at that time, having appeared, in the previous decade, in the lyrics of the popular song "Yankee Doodle", in which the titular character "stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni"; this usage had to do with the Macaroni fashion.

In English-speaking countries, the name macaroni is customarily given to a specific shape of pasta: small pasta tubes cut into short pieces. Macaroni is also sometimes labelled as elbow macaroni, or more simply elbows, due to the slight bend in the shape of the pasta noodle. In the U.S. and the United Kingdom, this pasta is often prepared by baking it with cheddar cheese; the resulting dish is called macaroni and cheese (often shortened to macaroni cheese in Britain). In some parts of the U.S., a more narrow type of macaroni is sold as elbow spaghetti.

Among some Italian-Americans (particularly in New York City, Philadelphia, and New Jersey), macaroni is used as a generic term for any type of pasta. Such usage, however, is not technically accurate.

External links

[The Cook's Thesaurus] Pictures and descriptions of pasta shapes

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