1.8K views · 19 shares | Tutti a tavola! Create celebrates the art of Italian cooking this #MothersDay weekend with a marathon of Lidia's Kitchen. Join Lidia Bastianich as she puts on a culinary master class while creating delicious Italian meals for the entire family! CreateTV.com/marathons | Create TV | Facebook

Arab settlers in 9th-century Sicily transformed Italian cuisine by introducing hard durum wheat, the key ingredient for pasta as we know it today. When Arab Muslims conquered Sicily in 902 AD, they brought this wheat, perfectly suited for making dried pasta that could be stored and transported without spoiling. Before this innovation, various forms of fresh pasta existed but could not be preserved for long periods. Under Arab rule, Sicilians adopted advanced irrigation and farming techniques tha