When we think of Italian typical cuisine, it is inevitable to think of a good pasta dish. However, what we think of as a product with ancient origins is actually a much more recent invention. At the beginning of the 20th century, the geneticist from Marche Nazareno Strampelli invented a type of wheat, the result of genetic manipulation, which was destined to be very successful in the production of pasta - Senatore Cappelli. This wheat was named in honour of Raffaele Cappelli, the senator who had financed Strampelli's research. The latter's aim was not to obtain a particularly valuable wheat, but to increase the productivity of the soft wheat varieties used in bread-making. Between the two world wars, Fascism came to power in Italy and with it the famous "battaglia del grano" policy: Strampelli and the wheat he invented were crucial in this agrarian policy. In fact, Senatore Cappelli quickly became the most widespread wheat in Italy, thanks - as we mentioned earlier - to its more efficient yield than the other wheat varieties typically used. Autarky, however, was a myth: in fact, among the different varieties Strampelli crossed to obtain Senatore Cappelli there was also one from Tunisia. As Professor Alberto Grandi provocatively writes: "We can say that Italian pasta has long been more African than Italian in the strict sense of the word". An evolution in this sense took place in the 1970s when, starting from Strampelli's crosses, even more efficient wheat varieties were obtained thanks to the use of the latest technology. The result of this further scientific research is the Creso wheat, created at the end of the 1960s and put on the market in 1974, which can be considered as the successor of Senatore Cappelli as its direct derivation. To conclude, again in the words of Grandi: "The Italian wheat used to make our famous pasta is the result of genetic manipulation of an African wheat".