This story is based on a set of facts provided to us in class. The challenge was to select the most newsworthy information, organize it following the inverted pyramid model and write an article for print news that adhered to journalistic style. It’s harder than it looks, but I’m pleased with the results.
World’s Oldest Noodles Settles Global Feud
A global feud regarding which culture developed noodles first is settled as a team of scientists discovered 4,000-year-old noodles this month in northwest China.
Houyuan Lu of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics at Beijing’s Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with a group of colleagues, discovered the oldest noodles in an archeological dig at an ancient settlement called Lajia.
Lajia, like Pompeii, is hypothesized to have been suddenly destroyed, but rather by a flood or earthquake.
The bowl of noodles seemed to be preserved by the surrounding clay after it was overturned and became sunk into the clay– protecting the noodles for thousands of years.
The noodles were 20 inches long and made of millet rather than wheat, the most common ingredient in modern noodles.
Lu said, “this is the earliest empirical evidence of noodles ever found. Before this, the earliest record of noodles was in a book written during China’s Han Dynasty sometime between A.D. 25 and 220.”
Archaeochemist, Patrick Mcgovern, said, “if the date for the noodles is correct, the find is quite amazing. This shows a fairly high level of food processing and culinary sophistication.”
The scientific paper describing the team’s discovery can be found in this month’s issue of Nature.
*National Geographic covered this story as well. You can find their story here.
Emilie Rae 