From The Food Encyclopedia by Jacques Rolland and Carol Sherman
Classic, long, flat egg noodles from Bologna, Italy, that roughly translates as "small cut-up things" or "little ribbons", from the verb tagliare, meaning "to cut." This specialty of the Emilia-Romagna region is said to have its origins in a nobleman's obsessive love for Lucrezia Borgia's hair. Similarly, the Italians are somewhat fanatical about their pasta, passing a law in 1972 that finally resolved a centuries-long disagreement about the correct width of tagliatelle: it must be 1⁄4-inch (1 cm) wide.
