Here, in the affluent city that dates to Roman times, the locals boast of their tortelli verdi, which have the same shape but a vibrantly green filling with generous quantities of Parmigiano Reggiano and a modest amount of ricotta--or none at all.

“We say they use so much ricotta in Parma because they can’t get good Parmigiano,” quips Andrea Bezzecchi, who’s recruited his mom to demonstrate Reggio-Emilia’s filled-pasta specialties. We are sitting in an elegant meeting room at Acetaia San Giacomo, near the village of Novellara (just outside Reggio nell’Emilia), where Andrea’s family makes a line of balsamic vinegars following methods traceable to the 11^th century. Andrea not only runs the business with his brother Christian, but is a certified taster for the local Parmigiano Reggiano consortium and an expert on local food traditions.

“Rolling is the most time-consuming step,” says Carla Incerti Ugolotti, Andrea’s mother, expertly wielding a four-foot mattarello that once belonged to her grandmother. Pasta dough made with seven eggs would form a sheet completely covering the handle-less rolling pin but today Carla is making only half that quantity to demonstrate her method. The dough yields centimeter by centimeter to the force of her rolling and stretching motions until the uniformly thin sfoglia fills the board.

“Some of my friends who have trouble with their hands or shoulders use a pasta machine, but I still do this the way I learned from my mother,” says Carla. The filling for her tortelli is marked by Parmigiano-scented greens that show through the ultra-thin pasta, and it’s flavor is redolent of the garlic that is her special touch.

Once finished with her tortelli verdi, Carla begins forming the meat-filled cappelletti that are Reggio Emilia’s answer to Parma’s half-moon anolini and the tortellini for which Bologna and Modena are known. With practiced choreography, she dots a tiny pasta square with the meat filling, joins opposing edges into a triangle and rotates it to make a diminutive hat perched on the end of her forefinger. Following her lead, I discover how devilishly hard it is to make these micro shapes—especially given that at least 20 are needed for each serving. Fortunately, Carla’s cappelletti proliferate rapidly, lining up like tiny soldiers. “When I was growing up, my mother made sure I did this,” she murmurs. “She’s gone now but it would seem like a lack of respect to do otherwise.”

Giuliano Bagnoli, a friend of Andrea who is a food historian as well as pediatrician, believes that the mix of meats in Reggio Emilia’s cappelletti fillings—which might include stewed beef, pork or poultry as well as cured meats—is explained in part by a country cook’s practical need to use ingredients at hand, including leftovers.  Over time, mixtures were codified into family recipes, many of which Giuliano has gathered and published in a scholarly paper on local cappelletti-making ways.

“These are passed down almost exclusively within families and, interestingly, no one particularly wants to try someone else’s recipe,” he observes. The reason their cappelletti cannot be improved upon, cooks tell him, is that they are to the taste of the men in the family.

This reluctance to experiment is a powerful force for preserving family traditions—and explains why, although some women learn pasta making from their mothers, it’s equally common for a bride to be tutored by her mother-in-law, thereby ensuring that her pasta will please her new husband. Men often participate in pasta making and, in fact, a tray of dried pappardelle produced by Andrea and his fiancée Francesca is displayed on the table. The couple served tortelli with Parmigiano Reggiano fondue and a drizzle of extra-aged balsamic vinegar at their wedding.

One bite of Carla’s tortelli verdi, its Parmigiano-scented greenness visible through the ultra-thin pasta and redolent of the garlic that is her special touch, and I’m a convert.  Then fragrant bowls of cappelletti floating in meat broth are set before us and, pouring Lambrusco from our glasses into the broth, we create the distinctive Reggio pasta potion called sùrbir’. The dialect root is related to bere (“to drink”), and Giuliano leaps up to show how to consume it.  Leaning jauntily against the wall, he alternately spoons cappelletti and sips the winey broth—just as a winter traveler of the past would have on being greeted with a steaming cup by an innkeeper. Sùrbir’ is valued not only as a nutritious restorative for hard working, chilled or exhausted people, but for its power to “open the stomach” to a feast.

Featured Recipe: Tortelli Verdi

Excerpted and modified by the author from an article published originally in Cucina Italiana.