Macaroni (/ˌmækəˈroʊni/, Italian: maccheroni) is dry pasta shaped like narrow tubes.[2] Made with durum wheat, macaroni is commonly cut in short lengths; curved macaroni may be referred to as elbow macaroni. Some home machines can make macaroni shapes but, like most pasta, macaroni is usually made commercially by large-scale extrusion. The curved shape is created by different speeds of extrusion on opposite sides of the pasta tube as it comes out of the machine.
The word "macaroni" is often used synonymously with elbow-shaped macaroni, as it is the variety most often used in macaroni and cheese recipes.[3] In Italy and other countries, the noun maccheroni can refer to straight, tubular, square-ended pasta corta ("short-length pasta") or to long pasta dishes, as in maccheroni alla chitarra and frittata di maccheroni, which are prepared with long pasta like spaghetti. In the United States, federal regulations define three different shapes of dried pasta, such as spaghetti, as a "macaroni product".[4]
In Italian, maccheroni refers to elongated pasta, not necessarily in tubular form.[5] This general meaning is still retained outside Rome and in different languages which borrowed the word. In Brazilian Portuguese, Estonian, Greek, Iranian, Russian and other Slavic languages, Arabic, Turkish, Kazakh, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic languages and some Italian-American dialects the word was adapted as a generic term for all varieties of pasta.
Maccheroni comes from Italian maccheroni [makkeˈroːni], plural form of maccherone.[6] The many variants sometimes differ from each other because of the texture of each pasta: rigatoni and tortiglioni, for example, have ridges down their lengths, while chifferi, lumache, lumaconi, pipe, pipette, etc. refer to elbow-shaped pasta similar to macaroni in North American culture.
However, the product as well as the name derive from the ancient Greek "Macaria". The academic consensus supports that the word is derived from the Greek μακαρία (makaria),[7] a kind of barley broth which was served to commemorate the dead.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] In turn, that comes from μάκαρες (makares) meaning "blessed dead", and ultimately from μακάριος (makarios), collateral of μάκαρ (makar) which means "blessed, happy".[17]
However, the Italian linguist G. Alessio argues that the word can have two origins. The first is the Medieval Greek μακαρώνεια (makarōneia) "dirge" (stated in sec. XIII by James of Bulgaria), which would mean "funeral meal" and then "food to serve" during this office (see modern Eastern Thrace's μαχαρωνιά - macharōnia in the sense of "rice-based dish served at the funeral"), in which case, the term would be composed of the double root of μακάριος "blessed" and αἰωνίος (aiōnios), "eternally".[18] The second is the Greek μακαρία "barley broth", which would have added the suffix -one.[19]
