"Vincenzo Agnoletti, pasta maker to the Duchess"

Vincenzo Agnoletti, renowned chef at the court of Maria Luigia, Duchess of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, often prepared pasta dishes for Her Highness and Prince Adam of Neipperg, her second husband.

Among the numerous recipes published by this master of cuisine at the beginning of the 1800s is one entitled "Meatless Macaroni" in which the pasta is boiled, mixed and covered with a white sauce made of fish, provatura (cheese similar to mozzarella), egg yolk and parmesan cheese, then baked to a golden-brown.

Another of his dishes, "Macaroni Timbale", was a main dish made of puff pastry filled with macaroni in meat sauce with grated parmesan cheese, covered by another layer of puff pastry and baked.

Even richer was this creation as described by the ducal chef himself, another type of timbale made of macaroni filled with mousseron mushrooms and truffles. "Prepare a good meat sauce for macaroni by cooking down sweetbreads, chicken livers, mousserons, truffles from Fragno and parmesan cheese and when it has cooled, add four or five beaten eggs with more yolks than whites and place in a well-greased casserole and bake the sart until it is golden and serve over diced prosciutto."

From N. Musti, Storie e storielle della cucina parmigiana, in GP, 15.2.1960, p 3.

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