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bout three weeks ago I returned from a trip to Bologna and checked in with Valeria Bollini, the indomitable and charming heart and soul of Tortellino d’Oro, a Joburg institution. She was perched on her customary stool behind the counter. We discussed her hometown, and the fantastic food I had hoovered down, in what is generally acknowledged to be the culinary epicentre of Italy.
Bollini was slightly dismissive of the quality of the pasta these days in Bologna; she said much of it was now made in a single factory that serviced many of the city’s restaurants. At Tortellino they have been hand-making the pasta as a matter of gustatory principle for much of my adult life. The consumption of melanzane parmigiana is practically a religious ritual in my family and several others I know of. Sometimes we all commune on a Friday with the express and only intention of eating the melanzane — the get-together is incidental. When I told Bollini that I had