macaroni [E16th] When ‘Yankee Doodle went to town a-riding on a pony’ and ‘stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni’, he was not confusing his headgear with pasta. He was presenting himself as a dandy—completely unconvincingly, reflecting the English view of Americans, then still under British colonial rule, as lacking sophistication. In 18th-century Britain the macaronis were young men who had travelled abroad and exaggeratedly imitated continental fashions. The pasta dish pre-dated this trend. Its name also survives in macaroon [L16th], which came through French, changing its recipe on the way. Italian macaroni goes back to Greek makaria ‘food made from barley’. See also paste, italian words.