Macaroni sellers in Naples, Italy - 18th and 19th centuries

Visitors to Naples noted the "great coppers filled with macaroni ready prepared, sprinkled over with cheese" and customers "taking it securely between the finger and thumb, they raise it very high, and let it fall into the mouth." The Naples area produced the best pasta - either "by their skilful method of compounding and kneading the flour, or from some peculiar excellence in the water and climate."

Large scale pasta production in 1767

A Frenchman, Paul-Jacques Malouin (1701-1778) wrote a detailed (over 300 pages) book Description et détails des arts du meunier: du vermicelier et du boulenger - about the pasta maker and baker - with marvelous images.  The hard manual labor was eased somewhat by rotating a pole connected by rope to the pasta press bar and by jumping up and down on a pole to knead the dough (similar to 1638 biscuit break).

1911 Macaroni machine

Huge macaroni machine in 1911 as compared with Jefferson's smaller version a hundred years before (below, more HERE ); from Artemas Ward's The Grocer's Encyclopedia. NY: 1911

Thomas Jefferson's Maccaroni machine

While in France, Jefferson ordered William Short (who was for a time his personal secretary) to buy a macaroni (Jefferson spelled it maccaroni) machine from Naples which eventually was shipped to America.  Their correspondence and Jefferson's drawings are below.  Click to enlarge