section_path: Legacy/Pasta myth
section_name: Pasta myth
paragraph_text: Pasta myth
  
  There is a legend about Marco Polo importing pasta from China; however, it is actually a popular misconception, originating with the Macaroni Journal, published by a food industry association with the goal of promoting the use of pasta in the United States. Marco Polo describes in his book a food similar to " lasagna ", but he uses a term with which he was already familiar. Pasta had already been invented in Italy a long time before Marco Polo's travels to Asia. According to the newsletter of the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association and food writer Jeffrey Steingarten, the durum wheat was introduced by Arabs from Libya, during their rule over Sicily in the late 9th century, thus predating Marco Polo's travels by about four centuries. Steingarten also mentioned that Jane Grigson believed the Marco Polo story to have originated in the 1920s or 30s in an advertisement for a Canadian spaghetti company.