You may have heard that Venetian merchant Marco Polo (1254-1324) was largely responsible for bringing the noodles from China to Italy (and also, according to legend, rice and ice cream) and for strongly influencing trade and travel in the Middle Ages.
Anyone who has read "Travels of Kublai Khan", a book that tells of his adventures in the East, knows that there are reports that have changed Western understanding about the side there. For Europeans, these stories have long been one of the few sources of knowledge about Asia. The book is a fundamental work of travel literature and probably the most influential of all time, as it influenced trade and pods in the days of the great navigations.
