Papa Parla Speaks
Tuesday, 5th January 2010 | 7 Comments
A few days back, Papa Parla left a comment on my Ricotta post. I thought it was too good to leave buried in the archives so here it is:
great story about great grand mom’s ravioli. you got to see the finished product but on my Sunday visits, i got to see the whole process. sheets of pasta were stretched across the kitchen table covered with a HUGE floured wooden “cutting” board. these sheets were not produced by a machine. they were hand rolled paper thin with a solid rolling pin(solid pin rolling is an art that i will explain to you in person). circles were cut out of the pasta with tin cans, filled with the ricotta mixture, folded in half, then forked shut. these raviolis were produced by the hundreds, floured and brought to my grandmother’s bedroom and placed on her bed spread to “cure” for a short time. the bedroom also had cords spanning the room where strands of spaghetti hung to dry. once the process was complete, the ravioli was cooked and tossed with a simple tomato sauce and served in a large bowl. the whole place smelled like parmesan cheese, garlic and wine. thanx for jarring that memory!
Thank you, Papa Parla!
January 5th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
this is great. Thanks for sharing it. It sounds a lot like what goes on in Chieti every Christmas and Easter in my aunt’s place.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
It’s wonderful to share these family traditions and to keep them going.
January 5th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Reminds me of my Christmases of the past when my grandmother,mother and aunts would all do this to feed the huge extended family sitting and standing in my grandmother’s kitchen. Thanks for the memories.
January 5th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
This is exactly what my grandmother did. I remember the bed in the spare bedroom always covered with drying pasta! Those were the best meals of my life.
January 6th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Check out a video I posted on 12/15 on FB (I shared it from my friend Leo, whom you met, but I don’t have a link for it) of his BF’s mom making pasta in their garden. She uses a slim metal rod to roll the pasta around. It’s Zen foodie brilliance.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:21 am
after i sent you this story, i forgot to include the best part. after dinner, my grandmother would bring out empty shirt boxes, line them with wax paper and fill them with the remaining uncooked ravioli which each family received as “care packages” with a quart jar of sauce to take home.
January 14th, 2010 at 8:46 am
[...] plump and unmistakably fresh fish. We easily could have gotten away with just one to share, but Papa Parla and I ordered one each. We watched as the chef sank the two fish with scored skin into a deep pan [...]