Noodles have been eaten for millennia, probably originating in the Middle East and spreading both east and west into Asia and Europe; however, the word ‘noodle’ is first attested in English as late as 1779. Various noodle-like dishes were called by many different names, from “thin foyles [leaves] of past” in (Curye on Inglysch) in 1390 for what is basically a lasagna recipe, to “macaroni” from an Italian dialect in the 1590’s. (In the well-known Revolutionary War song about Yankee Doodle and his hat, “macaroni” refers to dandies, or overly fashionable young men, rather than any type of pasta.) Thomas Jefferson is credited with bringing the first ‘macaroni’ machine to the young United States in 1789.
In modern parlance, a dumpling seems far removed from a noodle. One is thick and doughy, the other thin and slimy. However, though their preparation is different, (noodle dough is kneaded, rolled thin, and cut in strips, while dumpling dough is dropped by lumps into boiling liquid) they share nearly the same ingredients (flour, eggs, and salt) and both are boiled in hot liquid. Besides this culinary connection, there is a linguistic overlap between the two words. The word dumpling comes from the 1600’s from a Norfolk dialect of uncertain origin. Knödel: German for dumpling, and perhaps the origin of the word noodle (first attested from 1779). It seems to me some cook mixed up the German word for dumpling with the flat, thin, pasta that came to be known as a noodle.
I could not find recipes for noodles, macaroni, or pasta in my earliest American cookbooks. Although by the 1830’s there were recipes for making and using macaroni, the first pasta company in the United States didn’t open until 1848. However I did find many different dumpling recipes, specifically Norfolk-dumplings.
Norfolk dumplings are surprisingly simple and tasty, with a texture somewhere between a slippery noodle and a biscuity dumpling. The following recipe comes from Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery, page 111. book, though the exact same recipe is also found in Townshend’s The Universal Cook, p. 158.
“Mix a good thick batter, as for pancakes; take a half pint of milk, two eggs, a little salt, and make it into a batter with flour. Have ready a clean saucepan of water boiling, into which drop this batter. Be sure the water boils fast, and two or three minutes will boil them; then throw them in a sieve to drain the water away; then turn them into a dish, and stir a lump of fresh butter into them: Eat them hot and they are very good.”
I used ½ c. milk, 1 egg, ½ teaspoon salt, and 1 cup of whole wheat flour to make a batter the consistency of pancake batter and dribbled the batter into the water by spoonfuls. The result was like a thick, rather lumpy noodle. Adding more flour to make a thicker dough, resulted in a more biscuit dumpling.
So if you want something similar to a homemade noodle, but are pressed for time, the Norfolk dumpling is a reasonable alternative.
References:
Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including the “Forme of Cury”) Constance B. Heiatt (Editor), and Sharon Butler (Editor). Oxford University Press; 1st Edition edition, 1985.
Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy: Excelling any Thing of the Kind ever yet published. Alexandria: Cottom and Stewart. 1805. (First Edition publishing in London, 1747. This edition reprint of 1st American Edition, 1805, by Applewood Books, 1997).
Townshend, John. The Universal Cook or Lady’s Complete Assistant. S. Bladon: London, 1773 (facsimile).
BRIC-A-BRAC 