How Pasta Began in Ancient Greece Long Before Italy

Pasta is Italian, right? That’s what most people think. But versions of pasta actually existed much earlier in Ancient Greece, where flattened dough was cut into thin slices as early as the 10th century BC.

Italian food historian Giorgio Franchetti challenges the long-standing myth that pasta was introduced to Italy in 1300 BC by Venetian merchant Marco Polo, who traveled to China. While Marco Polo described noodles inspired by Chinese cuisine, there is a crucial difference: Chinese noodles were made from rice rather than wheat.

In his book Dining with the Ancient Romans, Franchetti dismisses this theory, noting, “The noodles that Marco Polo may have brought back from China at the end of the 1200s were essentially made with rice and based on a different, oriental culinary tradition that has nothing to do with ours.”

Franchetti traces the story of pasta, one of the most beloved foods worldwide. Today, pasta stands as a global culinary icon, its roots in Ancient Greece preserved through Roman culture and transformed into the countless shapes enjoyed around the world.

The pasta-like laganon of Ancient Greece

To trace the origins of pasta, it is essential to understand what the term meant in classical antiquity. Modern pasta is usually made from wheat flour, water, and sometimes egg kneaded into dough and boiled. Ancient sources do not describe boiled noodles exactly as we know them, but they do reference flattened sheets or strips of dough made from flour and water—early precursors to pasta.

The earliest mentions of a pasta-like food come from Ancient Greece around 1000 BC. This food, called laganon (plural laganae, Greek: λάγανον), was a flat sheet of dough that could be cut into strips, arguably marking the first pasta-like preparation in the Mediterranean. In Dining with the Ancient Romans, Franchetti highlights this Greek heritage, identifying laganon as a progenitor of later Mediterranean pasta forms. The Greeks prepared it not as a refined delicacy but as a simple, nourishing staple.

This early reference firmly situates pasta within the Greek culinary tradition, not as a foreign import from East Asia but as a local innovation rooted in wheat, a central element of the Greek diet. Wheat cultivation and basic dough preparations were common across Mediterranean agricultural villages, where culinary ideas evolved naturally over centuries.

The Romans adopt laganon from Ancient Greece

As Greek culture spread across the Mediterranean—through colonies and later under Roman rule—the Greek laganon was incorporated into Roman cuisine under the Latinized name laganae. Roman writers such as Cicero and Horace reference laganae in their works. This is proof that the dish had become a familiar staple of Roman diets.

According to Dining with the Ancient Romans, the Greek dish was adopted and often served in soups with leeks and chickpeas, a popular combination at the time. Food historians note that these Roman dough strips resembled a type of pasta, maltagliati, still enjoyed in Italy today. Franchetti observes that laganae served as “the main comfort food, just like pasta is today for Italians.” In Roman cooking, these dough sheets could be prepared simply or incorporated into more elaborate soups.

Although cooking methods differed from modern boiled pasta—Romans frequently layered or fried the dough sheets—the essential idea remained: kneaded dough shaped and prepared in versatile ways. These early practices influenced later dishes, including lasagna, whose name derives from laganum, linking the dough of Ancient Greece to a modern Italian pasta staple.

Archaeological evidence further supports the antiquity of dough-based foods in Italy. Frescoes from a 5th-century BC Etruscan settlement north of Rome depict tools such as pastry wheels, flour bins, and rolling surfaces used in dough preparation—indicating that such foods existed well before the Roman adoption of laganae.

Franchetti also emphasizes that Roman culinary identity revolved around grain-based staples. Wheat, far more than meat, provided daily nourishment. Dough preparations—whether baked, layered, or simmered in broths—were central to Roman households. Pasta-like dishes were practical, filling, and accessible across social classes, serving as an integral part of everyday sustenance rather than an elite novelty.

Beyond Greece and Rome

While the Greek laganon and Roman laganae represent essential early forms of pasta, other ancient cultures also produced simple dough-based foods. The Etruscans, contemporaries of early Rome, certainly prepared dough sheets and bread-like products. Archaeological evidence indicates that pasta-like foods existed in the Etruscan civilization, which flourished in the regions now known as Lazio, Umbria, and Tuscany.

A bas-relief discovered in an Etruscan tomb shows tools and kitchen utensils for rolling and shaping dough, remarkably similar to those still in use today. Variants such as testaroli—thin, pancake-like dough cooked on a hot surface—persist in Italian regions like Tuscany and Liguria and are sometimes described as the oldest surviving pasta forms derived from ancient culinary traditions.

In the 2nd century AD, Athenaeus of Naucratis records a recipe for laganae, attributed to the 1st-century philosopher Chrysippus of Tyana: sheets of wheat flour dough combined with the juice of crushed lettuce, flavored with spices, and deep-fried in oil.

The Greek laganon and Roman laganae laid the groundwork for European pasta. Over time, dough forms diversified, regional techniques developed, and new shapes and cooking methods emerged. By the Renaissance and early modern period, pasta had become firmly embedded in Italian culture, evolving into the rich variety of forms enjoyed today.

Additionally, historians note that other regions, including the Middle East and North Africa, independently developed dough-based dishes like couscous. While this is not pasta in the strict Greek or Roman sense, these traditions reflect a widespread human practice of combining flour and water to create nourishing foods.