Tortellini in Brodo

The story

According to a playful but long-told legend from the countryside around Bologna and Modena, the shape of tortellini was inspired by a divine navel. As the story goes, an innkeeper one night glimpsed the goddess Venus through the keyhole while she was staying at his inn, and was so taken with the sight of her navel that he rushed to the kitchen to copy its shape in meat-filled pasta. The legend is probably of later date than it sounds, but the shape, a small square of dough folded around the filling and twisted into a ring, truly is unique in Italian cooking and the subject of a serious regional rivalry. Bologna and Modena have competed for centuries over whose tortellini are the "original" and whose filling (usually a mix of pork, mortadella, prosciutto and Parmesan) is correct. At Christmas they are served almost exclusively "in brodo," cooked and served in a clear capon or beef broth, a simple dish that rests the palate before the richer courses to follow. Making hundreds of tortellini by hand, at a table full of relatives, is one of the most often mentioned Christmas memories in northern Italian families.