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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Travel
Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson: pumpkin pasta in Lombardy

Pumpkin power in Lombardy: Mantua piazza
"Mantua is one of those Italian towns that lives in the past and the present with such style that history becomes a continuum..."
Photograph: Alamy
Pumpkin power in Lombardy: Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson admires the local produce
Photograph: Francesca Cao
Pumpkin power in Lombardy: Mantua pig
Swine dining... most of the food in Mantua is sourced locally
Photograph: Francesca Cao
Pumpkin power in Lombardy: Preparing thew dough
Preparing the dough for fresh pasta
Photograph: Francesca Cao
Pumpkin power in Lombardy: Mantua pasta
Ravioli being made in a restaurant in Mantua
Photograph: Francesca Cao
Pumpkin power in Lombardy: Pumpkin stall Piazza delle Erbe Mantova
A pumpkin stall Piazza delle Erbe. "Pumpkins are to Mantua what potatoes are to Peru – varieties of every kind, shape, size and ­colour, the incredible edibles, the ones for ­decoration and others that are strung into ­loofahs or grated into soap"
Photograph: Getty
Pumpkin power in Lombardy: The Merlin Cocai
The Merlin Cocai restaurant at dusk, owned by a three-­generational family who grow a lot of their own food, and who offer cooking lessons
Photograph: Francesca Cao
Pumpkin power in Lombardy: A kitchen embrace
"To be in that warm kitchen with plenty of ­lambrusco sloshing about and food being ­prepared with such skill and pleasure was in every sense, and for all the senses, a better world than the “convenience” food of the ­Anglo-American supermarket culture"
Photograph: Francesca Cao
Pumpkin power in Lombardy: Jeanette Winterson cooking
"The daughter and grandson taught me how to make and roll the pasta dough, then spoon out the pumpkin filling, which has to be mixed with amaretti biscuits. The amaretti give it the distinctive sweetness that ­either you love or you don’t.'
Photograph: Francesca Cao
Pumpkin power in Lombardy: La grandmamma
"I was very bad at making same-size parcels, and I kept taking the little pillows over to la grandmamma - sitting by a wood-burning stove, watching bright-eyed - who in one twist and squeeze turned my lumpen, oozing misfire into elegant ravioli."
Photograph: Francesca Cao
Pumpkin power in Lombardy: Jeanette Winterson eating
Jeanette Winterson enjoys the fruits of her labour
Photograph: Francesca Cao
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