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Noodle

Traditional noodle-making involving hand-pulling in Dalian, Liaoning, China
Place of origin	The earliest record of noodles was discovered in northwestern China, from 4,000 years ago.[1]
Main ingredients	Unleavened dough
Media: Noodle

Noodles are a type of food typically made from unleavened dough which is rolled flat and cut, stretched, or extruded into long strips or strings. Noodles are a staple food in many cultures and made into a variety of shapes. The most common noodles are those derived from Chinese cuisine or Italian cuisine. Italian noodles are generally referred to as pasta. In Chinese cuisine, the overarching term for noodles is 面 (miàn in Mandarin), which refers specifically to dough-based noodles made from wheat or other grain-based dough. Chinese noodles also include another category, called 粉 (fěn), which are not made by kneading dough but from a starch slurry, such as rice noodles (mǐfěn, 米粉), and cellophane noodles (fěnsī, 粉丝/粉絲). These are not made from wheat dough, but are still regarded as noodles in English due to their physical form and culinary role.^[2][3][4]

While long, thin strips may be the most common, many varieties of noodles are cut into waves, helices, tubes, strings, or shells, or folded over, or cut into other shapes. Noodles are usually cooked in boiling water, sometimes with cooking oil or salt added. They can also be steamed, pan-fried, deep-fried, or baked. Noodles are often served with an accompanying sauce or in a soup, the latter being known as noodle soup. Noodles can be refrigerated for short-term storage or dried and stored for future use.

The word for noodles in English was borrowed in the 18th century from the German word Nudel (German: [ˈnuːdl̩] ^ⓘ).^[5] The German word likely came from Knodel or Nutel, and referred to any dumpling, though mostly of wheat.^[6]

Colloquial uses for noodle to refer to someone's head, or to a "dummy" are unrelated, and likely came from the older English word noddle.^[6]

The earliest written record of noodles is found in a book dated to the Eastern Han period (25–220 CE), and describes a noodle soup dish called "tang bing".^[1] Noodles made from wheat dough became a prominent food for the people of the Han dynasty.^[7] The oldest evidence of noodles was from 4,000 years ago in China.^[1] In 2005, a team of archaeologists reported finding an earthenware bowl that contained 4,000-year-old noodles at the Lajia archaeological site, made by the Qijia culture.^[8] These noodles were said to resemble lamian, a type of Chinese noodle.^[8] Analyzing the husk phytoliths and starch grains present in the sediment associated with the noodles, they were identified as millet belonging to Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica.^[8] However, other researchers cast doubt that Lajia's noodles were made from specifically millet: it is difficult to make pure millet noodles, it is unclear whether the analyzed residue were directly derived from Lajia's noodles themselves, starch morphology after cooking shows distinctive alterations that does not fit with Lajia's noodles, and it is uncertain whether the starch-like grains from Laijia's noodles are starch as they show some non-starch characteristics.^[9]

A homogenous mixture of flour and water called itrion was described by 2nd-century Greek physician Galen,^[10] among 3rd to 5th-century Jews itrium was described by the Jerusalem Talmud^[11] and itriyya (Arabic cognate of the Greek word), referred to string-like shapes made of semolina and dried before cooking - as defined by the 9th-century physician and lexicographer Isho bar Ali.^[12] According to National Geographic, many Italian writers have insisted pasta was enjoyed in pre-Roman Italy because a fourth century B.C. tomb had shown some resemblance to pasta-making equipment. However many food historians dispute this interpretation, and pointed out the scarcity of Roman-era references to anything resembling pasta, and believe that the dish instead first arrived in Italy as a "result of extensive Mediterranean trading in the Middle Ages". References to pasta dishes had only become increasingly frequent across the Italian peninsula from the 13th century.^[13]

There are over 1,200 types of noodles commonly consumed in China today.^[14] They vary widely according to the region of production, ingredients, shape or width, and manner of preparation. Due to the vast diversity of Chinese noodles, there is no single Chinese word equivalent to the Western concept of "noodles," nor is the notion of "noodles" as a unified food category recognized within Chinese cuisine.

In Standard Mandarin, miàn (simplified Chinese: 面; traditional Chinese: 麵) means "dough" but can be used to refer to noodles made from wheat flour and grains such as millet, sorghum, and oats. Similarly, fěn (粉) means "powder" but can be used to refer to noodles made from other starches, particularly rice flour and mung bean starch.^[15]

Wheat noodles in Japan (udon) were adapted from a Chinese recipe as early as the 9th century. Innovations continued, such as noodles made with buckwheat (naengmyeon) were developed in the Joseon Dynasty of Korea (1392–1897). Ramen noodles, based on southern Chinese noodle dishes from Guangzhou but named after the northern Chinese lamian, became common in Japan after World War II.^{[16][17][18][19]}

Kesme or erişte noodles were eaten by Turkic peoples by the 13th century.

Ash reshteh (noodles in thick soup with herbs) is one of the most popular dishes in some middle eastern countries such as Iran.

The Latinized word itrium referred to a kind of boiled dough.^[10] Arabs adapted noodles for long journeys in the fifth century, the first written record of dry pasta. Muhammad al-Idrisi wrote in 1154 that itriyya was manufactured and exported from Norman Sicily. Itriyya was also known by the Persian Jews during early Persian rule (when they spoke Aramaic) and during Islamic rule. It referred to a small soup noodle, of Greek origin, prepared by twisting bits of kneaded dough into shape, resembling Italian orzo.^[20]

In the 1st century BCE, Horace wrote of fried sheets of dough called lagana.^[21] However, the cooking method does not correspond to the current definition of either a fresh or dry pasta product.^[22]

The first concrete information on pasta products in Italy dates back to the Etruscan civilization, the Testaroli. The first noodles will only appear much later, in the 10th or 11th centuries,^[23] and there is a popular legend about Marco Polo bringing the first pasta back from China. Modern historians do not give much credibility to the story and rather believe the first noodles were imported earlier from the Arabs, in a form called rishta.^[24] Pasta has taken on a variety of shapes, often based on regional specializations.

In Germany, documents dating from 1725 mention Spätzle. Medieval illustrations are believed to place this noodle at an even earlier date.^[25]

An Armenian variety of noodle, Arishta, is prepared from wheat, water and salt. It is thick and is usually eaten with matzoon, clarified butter and garlic.^[26]

Zacierki is a type of noodle found in Polish Jewish cuisine.^[27] It was part of the rations distributed to Jewish victims in the Łódź Ghetto by the Nazis. (Out of the "major ghettos", Łódź was the most affected by hunger, starvation and malnutrition-related deaths.) The diary of a young Jewish girl from Łódź recounts a fight she had with her father over a spoonful of zacierki taken from the family's meager supply of 200 grams a week.^[28][29]

• 
  Egg pasta
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  Fresh pasta
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  Long pasta
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  Idiyappam, Indian rice noodles
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  Mixian (米线) rice noodles being cooked in copper pots (铜锅), China
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  Wide, uncooked egg noodles
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  Some different types of noodles commonly found in Southeast Asia

• Baked noodles: Boiled and drained noodles are combined with other ingredients and baked. Common examples include many casseroles.
• Basic noodles: These are cooked in water or broth, then drained. Other foods can be added or the noodles are added to other foods (see fried noodles) or the noodles can be served plain with a dipping sauce or oil to be added at the table. In general, noodles are soft and absorb flavors.
• Chilled noodles: noodles that are served cold, sometimes in a salad. Examples include Thai glass noodle salad and cold udon.
• Fried noodles: dishes made of noodles stir fried with various meats, seafood, vegetables, and dairy products. Examples include chow mein, lo mein, mie goreng, hokkien mee, some varieties of pancit, yakisoba, tallarín saltado, and pad thai.
• Noodle soup: noodles served in broth. Examples include phở, beef noodle soup, chicken noodle soup, ramen, laksa, mie ayam, saimin, and batchoy.

• Instant noodles
• Frozen noodles

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