Q 01/05

The word 'pasta' comes from the Italian for what?

A) Grain

B) Paste

C) Boiled

D) Plate

Answer · why

B) Paste

It traces further back through Late Latin to the Greek word for barley porridge.

Q 02/05

Traditionally, dried pasta was made only from which type of wheat?

A) Spelt

B) Einkorn

C) Durum

D) Emmer

Answer · why

C) Durum

Its name is Latin for 'hard', and it makes up only 5 to 8 percent of the world's wheat crop.

Q 03/05

Roughly how many specific pasta shapes are known, under more than 1,300 documented names?

A) 110

B) 210

C) 310

D) 510

Answer · why

C) 310

Names for the same shape often change from one Italian town to the next.

Q 04/05

Many historians think pasta in its modern form reached Italy through which island?

A) Sardinia

B) Corsica

C) Sicily

D) Malta

Answer · why

C) Sicily

A 1154 text describes dried string pasta being made near Palermo and exported across the Mediterranean.

Q 05/05

The story that Marco Polo brought pasta back from China is widely regarded as what?

A) A myth

B) Proven fact

C) A Chinese legend

D) A medieval forgery

Answer · why

A) A myth

Food writer Jane Grigson traced the tale to a 1920s or 30s advertisement for a Canadian spaghetti company.