It is crucial to identify the type of wheat used to manufacture macaroni rather than its specific forms or the fact that it is comprised of flour and water in order to pinpoint the location or time period of its creation. The fact that culinary writers typically have not discussed and distinguished the kinds of wheat clouds the enigma surrounding the origin of macaroni. It has been claimed that the Etruscans, the Chinese, the Greeks, and the Romans, as well as the Arabs, were responsible for the discovery of macaroni (also known as pasta secca in Italian, which distinguishes dried pasta from fresh pasta, or pasta fresca). In England the term also described a young man who imitated European clothes.

The term is derived from the now-extinct Italian word maccarone (or maccharone), which refers to a dish cooked with barley. However, although some home pasta makers may generate the shape, professionally made macaroni is typically created using an extrusion technique and marketed in its dry form. In other places, it is most notably linked to a baked dish called macaroni cheese, which was invented in England, not Italy, as many people would believe. In Italy, soup is most frequently linked with macaroni, a type of dry pasta manufactured from durum wheat and typically fashioned into short, narrow ravioli.

Macaroni noodle