A filling of stale, strictly unsalted bread and many spices dosed so that none prevails.
For the dough, not only eggs and flour, but also water, so as to make it more robust and create a pleasant contrast with the soft interior.
And the shape? Strictly a half-moon.
Here is the identikit of the true Lucca-style tordello, the flagship dish of our tradition.
Sketching it out was a group of experts gathered yesterday at the Real Collegio on the occasion of the Desco: the scholars of the Italian Academy of Cuisine, one of the promoters of the meeting, the cooks of the Club Fornello of Lucca, agronomists, oenologists, administrators. And a large audience, gathered not only to taste the tordelli prepared by the “Fornelle”, but also to hear stories and curiosities about this typical and much-loved dish.
One of the flagship dishes of Lucca cuisine is the protagonist of the events at the Desco: on Saturday 8 December there is a talk on “History and tradition of typical Lucca cuisine: the tordello”, with the president of the Chamber of Commerce Giorgio Bartoli and Samuele Cosentino of the Desco Committee, before moving on to the “demonstration” with the show cooking held by the Lucca delegation of the Club del Fornello – Rivalta, and to the talk “history and tradition of the tordello” by the Lucca section of the Italian Academy of Cuisine.
Certainly an original point of view, because one has rarely heard about the past or the ancestors of the tordello.
On the subject, the local section of the Academy of Cuisine has prepared a small volume. So, while the Sala del Grano filled with appetising aromas from the preparation of the dish, one learned that “tordello” is a term used only by the people of Lucca, Viareggio and the Lunigiana, while outside these territories it is called “tortello”. Why did the “t” become a “d”? “It is not clear,” report Andreini and Domenici. “Perhaps it derives from the Tuscan saying ‘as fat as a thrush (tordo)’ to describe a robust person: the tordelli, in fact, have a rather large and full shape and consistency compared to the classic ones.”
In any case, the term “tordello” spread after 1700, since in the menus of the Palazzo banquets in 18th-century Lucca the term “tortello” still appears.
The “concept”, however, has ancient origins. The name derives from the Latin “torquere”, that is, to turn, and the ancestors are the small filled tarts of the Middle Ages.
An invention of the culture and cuisine of that era, the “tortelle” made their appearance more or less everywhere: at first only in the great banquets, then also on the tables of the people, to make edible vegetables that were otherwise too bitter or ignoble pieces of meat, or to reuse leftovers. From savoury tarts to tortelli the step was short.
With the variant of the ravioli, born in Liguria — again in the medieval age, according to Andreini and Domenici — in the inn of the Raviolo family, from whom they took their name. The authors urge us not to confuse the two dishes: “The raviolo is generally square, more rarely round. The tortello is mostly rectangular, with various exceptions.”
Like the characteristic half-moon of the Lucca tordello: the round of dough, cut with an upturned glass or a mould, is folded over the filling and the edges pressed with the tines of a fork to prevent the filling from coming out during cooking. Of the basic recipe, few are the other fixed points: the balance of the spices used, the right amount of filling (neither too little nor too much), the consistency of the dough (made with fewer eggs), a well-reduced meat sauce for the dressing.
And a pinch of talent.
photo www.trattoriagigi.it