Jill Zamsky, age 10, of Milwaukee, Wis., for her question:

WHICH COUNTRY INVENTED SPAGHETTI?

Most people take it for granted that spaghetti was invented in Italy, where they use it to make so many delicious everyday meals. The wonderful wriggly stuff is related to macaroni, noodles and lots of other fancy shape food made from hard dough called pasta. The people of many European countries have been using these pasta foods for hundreds of years. But they did not invent them.

Spaghetti and all the noodle type dishes were invented by the Chinese ages and ages ago. Travelers from Europe found the Chinese enjoying these foods. The story goes that a famous Italian traveler named Marco Polo brought spaghetti type food back home from China. The people of Italy loved it and introduced it into other countries of Europe. This was so long ago that nobody remembers how or exactly when it happened.