Easter and Cappelletti

Almost everyday, I count the arrival of Easter.

I count with my 10 fingers, then my toes ... if it is not enough, I abandon. When I was a little girl, I believed that the total number of fingers and toes is a ‘Limit’number given from God to us human. Exceed this number means over human control and understanding, therefore I should stay tranquil - what will be, will be.

The tranquillity is broken completely, suddenly at a given time and for a definite cause. When the breaking moment arrives and ruins the rhythm of a song, the melody is lost. My breaking point came in 2007 and since then is repeated every year, a month before Easter. It seems that the pace of a part of my internal organ breaks down, I am in tension and start counting the days until Easter.

It is my stomach. It is like in the Easter mass, people sing religious songs different from the normal days.

‘Waiting in silent
The arrival of that day
With caress, to digest you’

My stomach is singing a different hymn.

It is Cappelletti. I know that he is calling Cappelletti. Since the first time I spent Easter at the house of Corrado’s grandmother and since the first time I sent to my stomach the Cappelletti made by her, the rhythm of my song is broken, is changed. At that moment, I almost believed that perhaps Jesus was awakened with the fragrance of Cappelletti.


The Cappelletti made by grandmother is special. Not just a matter of taste, but it opened a secret drawer in the bottom of my heart, where is full of Wanton (small dumplings of Hong Kong) with it I grew up, but now I am far away. The Cappelletti is the Italian version of Wanton but smaller in size. There are no cubed shrimp in the filling but stew beef, pork and mortadella. The pastry is a mixture of eggs and flour kneaded with hands. The shapes recalls a tiny hat (Cappello), hence the name.

Cappelletti and Wanton shares same dressing: always serves in soup. But the broth for Cappelletti must be for chicken broth, said Annamaria (the aunt of Corrado) precisely.

‘For my dad, making Cappelletti at home is an important ritual. Each process has a specific order and there is only one way to wrap the Cappeletti. Otherwise, that name can not be used!’ said Annamaria while teaching me the proper way to wrap them. She emphasized the rigidity in the manual operations while saying the world ONLY with a brief pause of suspension.

The dumplings to be called Cappelletti, must have the shape, the filling and the dressing right. It is like a person to be called Jesus must be the Son of God, and lives, preaches and dies with this truth. There is no alternative, how it begins, then ends. Who comes after should follow the same way.

At the time of wrapping Cappelletti, I felt receiving a responsibility.
Thinking of the stomachs of those will eat the Cappelletti made by me, hope they will sing the same song of my stomach.