si mangia bene

"Si mangia bene qui," the Bolognese like to tell me, a smile of proud contentment settling over their faces. "One eats well here." And indeed one does. Bologna's local cuisine is untouchable--tortellini al brodo (pork-filled tortellini in broth), crescentine con mortadella (fried bread with mortadella ham), tortelloni con burro e salvia (large tortelloni stuffed with ricotta and served with melted butter and sage), la piadina (that flat crispy sandwhich that we call "panini" in the states originated in the Romagna), and of course, the famous tagliatelle al ragù (that's "Bolognais sauce" to everyone else, but a completely different creature to that dry meat sauce over spaghetti one usually finds).

But of course to the just-graduated foreign English teacher who just barely scrapes by on her monthly earnings, a dinner at a real Bolognese trattoria is a monthly treat at best; more often it's something reserved for such fortunate events such as, say, parents visiting. We (that is, my American roommate and I) generally cook at home--that is, the ingredients are Italian (or, you know, Spanish or African or Indian), but the cooks are not.

Still, we have spent the past eight months trying to mangiare bene anyway, with the help of a couple cookbooks, instruction from our Italian friends, our own creativity, and vague memories of what our parents taught us back home in some distant American kitchen. The following recipes are what have worked well for us. The provenance of the recipe is listed, along with the recipe itself (often modified), and our comments. There may be some Bolognese recipes mixed in, but as I said earlier, la cucina Bolognese is already a perfect creature and we will only list it if it was taught to us by a real Bolognese, which does happen sometimes.

Buon appetito!