Ken Albala is a professor of history and food studies at the University of the Pacific. He is the author of Three World Cuisines: Italian, Mexican, Chinese and coauthor of The Lost Art of Real Cooking: Rediscovering the Pleasures of Traditional Food, One Recipe at a Time. He blogs at kenalbala.blogspot.com.
Ken Albala has spent years tossing ideas-and pretty much everything else-into a pot of water with homemade noodles rich in new flavors, textures, and colors. Now we all get to share the results. These clever, doable, delicious recipes thrill the palate and warm the soul. Let the choir sing out: soup's on! --Nathalie Dupree, PBS host and author of Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking Noodle Soup offers recipes (often engagingly free-form) and techniques, as promised, but also a fascinating history lesson. It teaches us about the oldest known noodles (from 4,000 years ago, made from millet and found in northwest China), the evolution of the word lasagna (from the Greek laganon and Latin laganum, flat sheets of dough), macaroni as fashion statement, Thomas Jefferson's handmade pasta, and more, citing recipes, poems, and medical treatises from the relevant eras. --Boston Globe