I’m a big fan of making my own bread and pasta and think it’s worthwhile for everyone to learn – it’s easy, cheap, and for most people, what you can make at home is much better than anything you can buy from a store.
However, it’s another story when you live a 2 minute walk from a fresh pasta shop like La Bottega del Tortellino.
For years we’ve dutifully bought their ricotta and spinach ravioli at least once a week. In a pinch, we’ll get a few portions of tortellini to serve in broth, or the potato and taleggio cheese ravioli which we’ll toss with butter and sage. Yes, this is what we get to eat when we’re too lazy to cook – fresh pasta, usually made no more than a day ago.
The owners have a 10 year old daughter and I often see them at the elementary school. Having chatted with them a few times, I understood that they had an unlikely story – having decided to change careers and become professional pasta makers.
The following video is about competing with big business, a changing food culture in Italy, and of course, pasta!
La Bottega del Tortellino – artisan pasta shop in Orvieto from Cross-Pollinate Travel on Vimeo.
Thank you for this little insider glimpse on small businesses. We live in Canada and have enjoyed 2-week vacations in different regions of Italy for the past 9 years. We love the whole slow-food, casareccia movement. Real food made with real regional ingredients and age-old knowhow is a great treasure. It feeds the body and the soul.
Thank you for this initiative and looking forward to receiving more clips of life in Italy.
I want to come next year and work free for a day to learn to make good healthy pasta.
Ahhhhh….makes me wish I was there NOW! but we will have to wait until May 2017. Thank you Steve for sending this. Now we know where to shop for pasta in Orvieto!
p.s. We will also be stopping in at Federico’s? leather shop.
Until then, James.
An absolutely beautiful video! I wish we could have something like that here in the U.S., but knowing how we (the US) is a “culture of convenience” it will never work here. Unfortunately, people do not have the full understanding here that convenience is not always better. I do not that I make my own pasta a lot (let’s face it, I work 40 hours a week, I am a graduate student, and have 2 kids), but when I do, I know my family and I are eating better and we are better off with it.
Thank you for sharing, Steve!