The Food Maven Diary Archives: June 2003
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Wednesday, June 4, 2003

Soufflé di Tagliarini
My friend and cooking school partner at Cook At Seliano, Baronessa Cecilia Bellelli Baratta, learned this from her mother, Elvira Baratta, who claims to have created the idea of an egg-white lightened baked pasta. (We doubt it. But who would dare to contradict her?) The Baratta family lives in Battipaglia, in the province of Salerno, just south of the city itself, where Cecilia’s father was in the tomato packing business. But for the duration of World War II, the family went to Parma, where it was much safer. Elvira still, at 91, cooks many Parmense dishes – her Christmas cappeletti are superb – and, the story goes, the idea for a soufflé of pasta came to her then. On the other hand, whenever I identify a dish with cream sauce and egg pasta as possibly of northern heritage, Cecilia reminds me that northern Italians hardly have a monopoly on a love of bechamel. [more]

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