CHAPTER
2
Ferrero Rocher
Accidental Hero
C
hina gave the world four great inventions: paper
for writing, circa
AD
100, and some nine hun-
dred years later, movable type for printing, the
magnetic compass, and gunpowder. Some would add pasta to
that list, but the notion that explorer Marco Polo of Venice
brought spaghetti back to Italy from China at the end of the
thirteenth century is a popular misconception; there is over-
whelming evidence that pasta had developed independently
in both countries long before. But it was Marco Polo’s father,
Niccolo
`
, and uncle, Maffeo, who undertook one of the earliest
documented journeys of Europeans all the way to China’s seat
of power, Beijing, in 1266. Seven hundred years later, Italians