There are competing stories as to how pasta first came to what is now Italy. One is that Marco Polo introduced the hungry population to the concept of noodles after a 17-year jaunt around China in the 13th century. The other is that Arab tribes introduced the West (what would later be called Europe) to noodles, inspired by the cuisine they had encountered in Asia hundreds of years earlier. That, not the Marco Polo story, is probably as close to the true story as we’ll ever get. What is known is that noodles originated in Asia. No matter how noodles arrived in Mediterranean countries, there’s no question that the Italians were making, and perfecting, pasta as far back as 800 CE — at least 500 years before Marco Polo left China — with a set of simple, inexpensive ingredients: flour and water (and an egg for most fresh kinds of pasta), the same tried and true ingredients that are used today.