Pumpkin tortelli and sbrisolona: Mantua in two bites

Every Italian city has a dish that explains it. Mantua has two, at the opposite ends of the meal: pumpkin tortelli to open it, sbrisolona to close it. In between, five hundred years of a cuisine that never feared mixing sweet with savoury.

Pumpkin tortelli

Thin pasta, a filling of pumpkin, amaretti and Mantuan mostarda: the pumpkin tortello is a balance that should not work and instead enchants — the sweetness of the pumpkin, the bitter note of the amaretti, the spicy pinch of the mostarda. It is a recipe that smells of Renaissance courts and never left home: tradition puts it on the table on Christmas Eve, but the region's restaurants serve it all year, dressed the proper way — melted butter, sage, and a snowfall of grana.

Sbrisolona

The dessert is a lesson in character. Sbrisolona is a cake of almonds, cornmeal and butter that by definition refuses the knife: you break it with your hands, at the centre of the table, and everyone takes their piece. The name comes from «brise», the crumbs — which are half the pleasure. Rough, crumbly, perfect with a glass of passito, or dunked without shame.

Where to try them

In Mantua you will not need to search: both names sit on nearly every menu in the centre, and the village festivals celebrate them between late summer and autumn, when the pumpkins come in from the fields. The real tip is another one: ask us. We know where they are made properly, in Mantua and around it, and pointing you right is the part of the job we enjoy most.

And the next morning, at your door, the breakfast basket with its homemade cakes picks up the conversation exactly where you left it.

You can visit Mantua without climbing a tower, if you wish. Without these two bites, you cannot: this is where the city tells its whole story. The rest of the day builds itself.