The Visions of Dr. Owlbomb

Modern sources always have a lot to say about Thos. Jefferson, and his importation of pasta to Virginia. All that aside, Sir Hugh Platt, in the 1590s, seems to have been the original British pasta guy. Imagine that! Just a few years after the Armada, and pasta was being made (and was apparently quite popular too) in England. Sir Hugh proposed it as a naval ration, although it never seems to have replaced hardtack. It seems to have been the high-tech food of its day, allowing people to store wheat in a dehydrated form against bad times. Useful, and just plain good to eat as well. There's something very satisfying about the texture of pasta.

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Story Hour at the North Webster Library. I recall one of my teachers opining that the popular history of an era is generally defined about 40 years after its end, when the people who were toddlers and young children grow into middle age, and start to wonder what their personal memories mean, and how they fit into the wider picture.