Pasta (UK: /ˈpæstə/, US: /ˈpɑːstə/; Italian: [ˈpasta]) is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking.

Pasta was originally only made with durum, although the definition has been expanded to include alternatives for a gluten-free diet, such as rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils.

[15] Writing in the 2nd century, Athenaeus of Naucratis provides a recipe for lagana which he attributes to the 1st-century Chrysippus of Tyana: sheets of dough made of wheat flour and the juice of crushed lettuce, then flavored with spices and deep-fried in oil.

[15] An early 5th-century cookbook describes a dish called lagana that consisted of layers of dough with meat stuffing, an ancestor of modern-day lasagna.

[15] However, the method of cooking these sheets of dough does not correspond to the modern definition of either a fresh or dry pasta product, which only had similar basic ingredients and perhaps the shape.

Here there are huge buildings in the countryside where they make vast quantities of itriyya which is exported everywhere: to Calabria, to Muslim and Christian countries.

[19]One form of itriyya with a long history is lagana, which in Latin refers to thin sheets of dough,[15] and gave rise to the Italian lasagna.

At first, dry pasta was a luxury item in Italy because of high labor costs; durum wheat semolina had to be kneaded for a long time.

[24] Food historians estimate that the dish probably took hold in Italy as a result of extensive Mediterranean trading in the Middle Ages.

[25] In the 14th-century writer Boccaccio's collection of earthy tales, The Decameron, he recounts a mouthwatering fantasy concerning a mountain of Parmesan cheese down which pasta chefs roll macaroni and ravioli to gluttons waiting below.

With the worldwide demand for this staple food, pasta is now largely mass-produced in factories and only a tiny proportion is crafted by hand.

To address the needs of people affected by gluten-related disorders (such as coeliac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity and wheat allergy sufferers),[35] some recipes use rice or maize for making pasta.

[36][37] Other additions to the basic flour-liquid mixture may include vegetable purees such as spinach or tomato, mushrooms, cheeses, herbs, spices and other seasonings.

[6] Additives in dried, commercially sold pasta include vitamins and minerals that are lost from the durum wheat endosperm during milling.

In southern Italy more complex variations include pasta paired with fresh vegetables, olives, capers or seafood.

Upon the addition of water, during mixing, intermolecular forces allow the protein to form a more ordered structure in preparation for cooking.

[57] Semolina flour is the ground endosperm of durum wheat,[51] producing granules that absorb water during heating and an increase in viscosity due to semi-reordering of starch molecules.

[59] As more water is added and shear stress is applied, gluten proteins take on an elastic characteristic and begin to form strands and sheets.

The amount of water added to the semolina is determined based on the initial moisture content of the flour and the desired shape of the pasta.

[51] As the starch granules swell slightly in the presence of water and a low amount of thermal energy, they become embedded within the protein matrix and align along the direction of the shear caused by the extrusion process.

A 100-gram (3+1⁄2 oz) portion of unenriched cooked pasta provides 670 kilojoules (160 kcal) of food energy and a moderate level of manganese (15% of the Daily Value), but few other micronutrients.

[69] As pasta was introduced elsewhere in the world, it became incorporated into a number of local cuisines, which often have significantly different ways of preparation from those of Italy.

[70] Countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea were introduced to pasta from colonization and occupation through the Italian Empire, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Southern Somalia has a dish called suugo which has a meat sauce, typically beef based, with their local xawaash spice mix.

In cha chaan teng, macaroni is cooked in water and served in broth with ham or frankfurter sausages, peas, black mushrooms, and optionally eggs, reminiscent of noodle soup dishes.

[74] These affordable dining shops evolved from American food rations after World War II due to lack of supplies, and they continue to be popular for people with modest means.

In Sweden, spaghetti is traditionally served with köttfärssås (Bolognese sauce), which is minced meat in a thick tomato soup.

Twice a year, hundreds of people in Sardinia make a nighttime 20-mile (32 km) pilgrimage from the city of Nuoro to the village of Lula for the biannual Feast of San Francesco, where they eat what is possibly the world's rarest pasta.

Following the FDA's standards, a number of states have, at various times, enacted their own statutes that serve as mandates for various forms of macaroni and noodle products that may be produced or sold within their borders.

The USDA also allows that enriched macaroni products fortified with protein may be used and counted to meet either a grains/breads or meat/alternative meat requirement, but not as both components within the same meal.