Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Macaroni

MACARONI (from dialectic Italian maccare, “to bruise or crush”) is a preparation of wheat originally peculiar to Italy, in which country it is an article of food of national importance. The same substance in different forms is also known as vermicelli, pasta or Italian pastes, taglioni, fanti, &c. These substances are prepared from the hard semi-translucent varieties of wheat which are largely cultivated in the south of Europe, Algeria, and other warm regions, and which are distinguished by the Italians as grano duro or grano da semolino. Hard wheats are much richer in gluten and other nitrogenous compounds than the soft or tender wheats, and their preparations are more easily preserved, to which conditions their suitability for the manufacture of Italian pastes are mainly due. The various preparations are met with in the form of fine thin threads which constitute vermicelli, so called from its thread-worm like appearance, thin sticks and pipes (macaroni), small lozenges, stars, disks, ellipses, &c. (pastes), and ribbons, tubes, and other fanciful forms. These various forms are prepared in a uniform manner from a granular meal of hard wheat which itself, under the name of semolina or semola, is a commercial article. The semolina is thoroughly mixed and incorporated into a stiff paste or dough with boiling water, and in the hot condition it is placed in a strong metallic cylinder, the end of which is closed with a thick disk pierced with openings which correspond with the diameter or section of the article to be made. Into this cylinder an accurately fitting plunger or piston is introduced, and by very powerful pressure it causes the stiff dough to squeeze out through the openings in the disk in continuous threads, sticks, or pipes, as the case may be. When pipe or tube macaroni is being made, the openings in the disk are widened internally, and mandrels, the gauge of the tubes to be made, are centred in them. In making pastes the cylinder is laid horizontally, the end is closed with a disk pierced with holes having the sectional form of the pastes, and a set of knives revolves close against the external surface of the disk, cutting off the paste in thin sections as it exudes from each opening. Macaroni is dried rapidly by hanging it in long sticks or tubes over wooden rods in stoves or heated apartments through which currents of air are driven. It is only genuine macaroni, rich in gluten, which can be dried in this manner; spurious fabrications made with common flour and coloured to imitate the true material will not bear their own weight. Imitations must therefore be laid out flat and dried slowly, during which they very readily split and break up, while in other cases they become mouldy on the inside of the tubes. True macaroni can be distinguished by observing the flattened mark of the rod over which it has been dried within the bend of the tubes; it has a soft yellowish colour, is rough in texture, elastic, and hard, and breaks with a smooth glassy fracture. In boiling it swells up to double its original size without becoming pasty or adhesive, maintaining always its original tubular form without either rupture or collapse. It can be kept any length of time without alteration or deterioration, and it is on that account, in many circumstances, a most convenient as well as a highly nutritious and healthful article of food. In its various forms it is principally used as an ingredient in soups, and for the preparation of puddings, with cheese, &c. Many of the good qualities of genuine macaroni may be obtained by enriching the flour of common soft wheat with gluten obtained in the preparation of wheaten starch, and proceeding as in the case of semolina. Such imitations, and others of inferior quality, are extensively made both in France and Germany.