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Macaroni is a kind of moderately extended, machine-made dry pasta. Much shorter than spaghetti, and hollow, Macaroni does not contain eggs. Though home machines exist that can make macaroni noodles, Macaroni is usually commercially made.

Macaroni is a corruption of the Italian word maccherone and its plural maccheroni. Its etymology is debatable. Some scholars think it's related to Greek makaria, a kind of barley broth. Others think it comes from Italian maccare, "to bruise or crush" (referring to the crushing of the wheat to make the pasta), which comes, in turn, from Latin macerare.^[1]

In English-speaking countries, the name macaroni is customarily given to a specific shape of pasta ie. small pasta tubes cut into short pieces. In the United States macaroni is also sometimes labeled as elbow macaroni, or more simply elbows, due to the slight bend in the shape of the pasta noodle. In the U.S. and the United Kingdom, this pasta is often prepared by baking it with a sauce made from cheddar cheese; the resulting dish is called macaroni and cheese (often shortened to macaroni cheese in Britain, and "Mac'n'cheese" in the U.S.). In some parts of the U.S., a more narrow type of macaroni is sold as elbow spaghetti.

Among some Italian Americans (particularly in New York City, Philadelphia, and New Jersey), macaroni is used as a generic term for any type of pasta. Such usage, however, is not technically accurate.

Contents 1 Macaroni machines 2 See also 3 External links 4 References

Thomas Jefferson is credited with introducing the first macaroni machine in the United States, in 1789, when he returned home after serving as ambassador to France. He said that Daniel Paese taught him all he learned about this machine. The word macaroni was already familiar in the U.S. at that time, having appeared in the previous decade in the lyrics of the popular song "Yankee Doodle", in which the titular character "stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni"; this usage had to do with the Macaroni fashion.

• List of pasta

• Jefferson's notes on the French macaroni machine
• Making your own macaroni from scratch - step-by-step illustrated recipe in English

1. ^ Maccherone, Maccarone (Italian). Vocabolario Etimologico della Lingua Italiana di Ottorino Pianigiani. Retrieved on Febrary 24, 2007.