From Homemade Pasta to the Maccheronaio

Homemade pasta moved early from family kitchens into the workshops of the mills. There the town women, used to preparing pasta in their own kitchen, continued in the workplace to make creative shapes, at first always by hand. With the arrival of the early machines, the small formats—gnocchetti, strascinati, and farfalline, to name a few—remained the province of the women.²⁶

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the hills that frame the Bay of Naples were punctuated by myriad so-called cirmoli, the old mills powered by the precious waters of the river Sarno, or by donkeys, horses, or even men. Much later, with the development of hydraulic mills, these small, family-run industries were not replaced by the nascent industry, but have continued operation up to our own day.²⁷