Drag to pan · scroll to zoom
Drag to rotate
Tracing “”…
Where does the word "al dente" come from? It comes from Italian al dente, and was adopted directly into English (1930s).
Read the full story
Where does the word "al dente" come from? It comes from Italian al dente, and was adopted directly into English (1930s).
Al dente’s story begins in Italian: al dente meant “to the tooth.” 'to the tooth', the Italian test for perfectly cooked pasta. It reached English by 1930s as al dente. Spread with Italian cooking in Britain and America. Today, al dente means cooked so as to be still firm when bitten.
- Stage 1 · Italian · 1900s al dente "to the tooth", 'to the tooth', the Italian test for perfectly cooked pasta.
- Stage 2 · English · 1930s al dente "firm to the bite", spread with Italian cooking in Britain and America.