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Vermicelli thickness comparison [ edit ]

In USA, the National Pasta Association, founded in 1904, that has no links with its Italian counterpart, the Unione Industriali Pastai Italiani, lists vermicelli as a thinner type of spaghetti.

History in Italy

In 14th-century Italy, long pasta shapes had varying local names. Barnabas de Reatinis of Reggio notes in his  Compendium de naturis et proprietatibus alimentorum  (1338) that the Tuscan  vermicelli  are called  orati  in Bologna,  minutelli in Venice,  fermentini  in Reggio, and  pancardelle  in Mantua.

The first mention of a vermicelli recipe is in the book  De arte Coquinaria per vermicelli e maccaroni siciliani  ( The Art of Cooking Sicilian Macaroni and Vermicelli ), compiled by the famous Maestro Martino da Como, unequalled in his field at the time and perhaps the first "celebrity chef," who was the chef at the Roman palazzo of the papal chamberlain ("camerlengo"), the Patriarch of Aquileia. In Martino's  Libro de arte coquinaria , there are several recipes for vermicelli, which can last two or three years ( doi o tre anni ) when dried in the sun.

History in Asia

In English, the Italian loanword "vermicelli" is used to indicate different sorts of long pasta shapes from different part of the world but mostly from South or East Asia. The dish in the original language are variously known as  seviyan  in Urdu and Hindi,  shemai  in Bengali,  sev  in Gujarati,  shavige  in Kannada,  sevalu  or  semiya  in Telugu, and  semiya  in Tamil and Malayalam. The noodles are used in a number of dishes including a variation of  kheer , a sweet dessert similar to rice pudding. Vermicelli are also used in many parts of India to make a popular dish called upma . To prepare it, dry oil-roasted vermicelli are boiled with a choice of vegetables.

Persian  reshteh  also resembles vermicelli. faloodeh  is a Persian frozen dessert made with thin vermicelli noodles frozen with corn starch, rose water, lime juice, and often groundpistachios.

In East Asia, the term Rice Vermicelli is often used to describe the thin rice noodles popular in China, also known as  bee hoon  in Hokkien, mai fun in Cantonese inThai, in Burmese, and  bún  in Vietnamese. The term  vermicelli  may also refer to vermicelli made from mung bean, which is translucent when cooked, whereas rice vermicelli turns whitish when cooked. Mung bean vermicelli is commonly used in Chinese cuisine. In contrast, misua  is vermicelli that is made of wheat instead of rice. While superficially similar to  bee hoon  it has a very different texture and different culinary uses as well