It was a long time to wait for a portion of noodles. Scientists have uncovered the world's oldest known noodles, dating back 4,000 years, at an archaeological site, Lajia, along the upper reaches of the Yellow river in northwest China.
They were preserved in an upturned bowl among the debris of a gigantic earthquake. Until now, the earliest evidence for noodles has been a Chinese written description of noodle preparation dating back 1,900 years. The Lajia settlement is thought to have been destroyed by earthquake and catastrophic floods.
Lu Houyuan and his team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing were excavating this scene of ancient destruction when they came across a well preserved earthenware bowl, embedded upside-down in a layer of clay. In the bowl they were amazed to see the remains of somebody's dinner.
"The prehistoric noodles were on top of the sediment cone that once filled the inside of the inverted bowl. Thin, delicate and yellow, they resembled the traditional la-mian noodle that is made by repeatedly pulling and stretching the dough by hand," Lu said.
An empty space between the sediment and the bottom of the bowl had prevented the soft noodles from being crushed and helped preserve them.
"The empty space must have been tightly sealed and become anoxic, allowing excellent preservation of the noodles for 4,000 years," Lu said.
When the bowl was lifted the exposure to air quickly oxidized the noodles, turning them to dust, but Lu and his colleagues still managed to analyze the remains.
By analyzing the microscopic mineral particles that form within plants, and starch grains from the noodle powder, the scientists managed to narrow down what kind of flour the noodles were made from.
Modern noodles tend to be made from wheat flour, but analysis of the ancient noodles revealed they were made from millet, used in making alcoholic drinks.
"Our findings support the belief that early plant domestication and food production relied on millet in the semi-arid Loess plateau region of China," wrote Lu in the journal Nature yesterday.
This also shows the people in the Lajia region had learned how to make a millet flour dough, that could be stretched into long, thin strands and boiled up.
The next question is what the Lajia people ate with their noodles. Lu and colleagues found bone fragments and an oily substance in the bowl and hope to analyze them to determine the recipe.
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