Mangia!

Pasta has been gracing the dining table (and our bellies) since the first century.

Today is World Pasta Day and Campbell restaurants like are celebrating the best way they know how: with food.

The restaurant is giving away a one-pound bag of their dry pasta with a purchase of a dinner item/main course today (appetizers do not qualify).

"Basically, we want everyone to know that pasta is a main staple in a lot of countries," says Seth Maddox, assistant general manager at Buca di Beppo in the Pruneyard. "We want to promote pasta and let people know what we are all about."

The Italian restaurant has been at the Pruneyard for the last 11 years and Maddox says that today's promotion just piggy backs on what the restaurant does best.

"When you eat with family, Aunt Flo sends you home with left overs," he says. "We are sending you home with something you can cook yourself."

Buca di Beppo is open today, between 11:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.

*Pasta fun facts:

• The Arabs adapted noodles for long journeys in the fifth century, the first written record of dry pasta.
• Durum wheat pasta was introduced by Libyan Arabs during their conquest of Sicily in the late seventh century.
• In North Africa, a food similar to pasta, couscous, has been eaten for centuries.
• There is a legend of Marco Polo importing pasta from China, which originated with the Macaroni Journal, published by an association of food industries with the goal of promoting the use of pasta in the United States.
• This year, World Pasta Day returns to Rome, where the International Pasta Organisation and Association of the Italian Pasta and Confectionery Industries will host a special event to celebrate the world's favourite food.

*Information from Wikepedia and the International Pasta Organisation.