Tale of the tortelli

Ciao a tutti! / Sziasztok!

Another post another pasta; this time I am telling you about our tortelli workshop and the wonders of the Italian kitchen table. Can’t make the connection? Well, it is very straight forward if you know about the hidden drawer underneath the table top where you can find the kneading board to make pasta on. So clever isn’t it?

But it probably doesn’t come as a surprise as everything connected to food is so efficient here (not like most things). Although, I haven’t experienced much of the famous “Italian timing” as, for example, only two of my trains were late since I’m here and with only a few minutes. This could be just a stereotype then, however, our region is in northern Italy which is said to be the efficient one, the industrial workhorse. While, the South is the one economically relying on tourism mainly (not so flourishing nowadays..) and it is more traditional which can give a basis to it.
There are so many divisions within this country I find fascinating as Hungary is way more homogeneous; in my previous post I was talking about the opposition between Emilia and Romagna and now, zooming out, the southern and northern part of Italy. These are way bigger topics to talk about than just here in my short blog so I encourage everyone to look it up and read about it, there are so many resources available and you won’t regret it!

Going back to the tortelli, it is traditionally made in the north of Italy: Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, and Tuscany. It is a type of filled pasta served with various sauces on top.
Ours in particular was filled with a potato mixture and had buttery sauce with sage as well as ragu on top. We stared early morning on the market buying all the ingredients fresh (and getting wine of course) then went our lovely mentor’s home to start making the home-made pasta and filling straight away. After kneaded and rolled the dough – using a machine I desperately want now -, filled, folded and cut the pasta, our long team-building exercise rewarded us with an amazing lunch.