canederli, trentino's beloved bread dumplings
pasta of the month 012
Recently I heard the term “fool’s spring” used to describe the tantalizing, hopeful weeks between winter and the moment the sunshine and warm breezes finally decide to stay. Spring might have officially started in March, but April, from its very first day, loves to make fools of us all, and its weather, ever the trickster, is no different. Here, in Washington, DC, the cherry blossoms—the city’s spring siren—have already peaked, pink and white petals a constant flurry over sidewalks and passersby. And yet—and yet—the sky is gray and the wind is brisk and it’s a very unspringlike 45 degrees. So, although I’ve already dipped my toe into spring cooking, I’m retreating into winter’s comforts for just a moment longer. Introducing our next Pasta of the Month: canederli, bread dumplings from Trentino-Alto Adige.
I’ve been fascinated by canederli for a very long time. They’re considered both a type of gnocchi (gnocchi di pane, or bread gnocchi) and a German and Austrian dumpling called knödel. Canederli are big—the size of clementines—and served in broth, with butter, or alongside hearty stews. Today, they usually refer to a particular combination of stale bread, milk, eggs, speck, and cheese, but the term is an old one that encompasses many flavor combinations from many places, from buckwheat and potatoes, to spinach, to ricotta, to liver. Some canederli are sweet, with fresh plums and sugar.
You, like me, might be thinking that canederli look more like matzah balls than pasta. This, of course, is precisely why I chose them to kick off the month of April, with Passover—the Jewish holiday of matzah—right around the corner. Not only do they look alike, but their names aren’t so different either: Matzah balls, which hail from the Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe, are also called kneydlech, knaidelech or knaidlach in Yiddish—not a far cry from knödel. And while canederli are decidedly not a Passover food, which forbids eating leavened bread and associated products (including pasta), it’s always a delight to see cultures intersect when you least expect it.
Although canederli might not fit the typical pasta mold—even my trusty advisor, Oretta Zanini de Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta, admits that “this is not a true pasta”—they are so steeped in northern Italian food traditions that they can hardly be described anything else. They’re most commonly found in Trentino-Alto Adige (South Tyrol), a jewel of a region bordering Austria and Switzerland and covered by the Dolomite Alps. Two main provinces make up this region: Trentino (Trento) and Alto Adige (Bolzano). The former is more heavily influenced by neighboring Veneto and Lombardy, with Italian as the primary language; the latter leans German, both in its language and its culture. Still, over time the two areas have melded into something new, and the food reflects as much—you might find pizza, pasta, sauerkraut, goulash, and apple strudel on the same menu. Which makes canederli—part gnocchi, part knödel—far less surprising. Indeed, in Trentino, where hand-written cookbooks have long been passed down from mothers to daughters, family recipes for this beloved not-pasta-pasta abound among rich and poor alike, some dating back to the 17th century.
Cultural context aside, canederli are also the product of resourcefulness. Trentino-Alto Adige’s frigid weather and mountainous terrain have ingrained upon its cooks the importance of recycling and reusing their food—no morsel of bread, cheese, meat, or foraged vegetable goes to waste. In peasant communities of centuries past, bread was baked weekly or even monthly and, once hardened and stale, it was used as an ingredient in other dishes—soups, often; canederli, of course—or even grated and kneaded as if it were flour. In some of the more isolated mountain areas, bread was most precious of all, made only four times a year.
True to form, my canederli recipe is about 85% traditional, with some very prominent changes. Speck, a smoked and cured ham, is central to Trentino-Alto Adige’s cuisine and so, too, these dumplings. Its distinct, full flavor has given it European IGP certification—speck can only be produced in a specific place, in a specific way—and it’s the area’s most popular exported food product. But, not only is speck difficult to come by stateside (prosciutto is a good substitute), it’s a pork product on my Do Not Eat list and so, instead, I swapped it for smoked cheese (no regrets: it makes these dumplings extra-gooey and moreish). And although you can serve these in any broth you like, I opted for one built on leeks and mushrooms. The result is soothing enough for these last cold, gray days, but also a little lighter in the hopes that spring will stop fooling us once and for all.
Canederli (Bread Dumplings) in Mushroom Broth
Makes about 12 dumplings and 2 quarts (liters) of broth, serving 4