a christmas carol essay on change

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — A Christmas Carol — How does Scrooge Change Throughout the Novel

How Does Scrooge Change Throughout The Novel

• Categories: A Christmas Carol Character

About this sample

Words: 691 |

Published: Sep 16, 2023

Words: 691 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

The unforgiving scrooge, the visitation of the spirits, scrooge's epiphany and redemption, conclusion: a timeless tale of redemption, the ghost of christmas past, the ghost of christmas present, the ghost of christmas yet to come.

• Generosity: Scrooge donates to charity and provides a feast for the Cratchits, exemplifying his newfound generosity.
• Compassion: He expresses concern for Tiny Tim's health and well-being, showing genuine compassion for others.
• Kindness: Scrooge becomes a warm and considerate employer, granting Bob Cratchit a raise and a more comfortable workspace.
• Reconciliation: He seeks reconciliation with his nephew, Fred, and joins in the merriment of their Christmas celebration.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr Jacklynne

Verified writer

• Expert in: Literature

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 432 words

4 pages / 1862 words

4 pages / 1725 words

7 pages / 3092 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on A Christmas Carol

Generosity is a prevailing theme in Charles Dickens' timeless novella, "A Christmas Carol." The narrative revolves around the transformation of the protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge, from a miserly and self-centered individual to a [...]

When it comes to timeless holiday tales, Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" stands as a beloved classic. This novella, written in 1843, has been adapted into numerous films and TV specials over the years. Two of the most [...]

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has been a beloved holiday classic for over a century, and the story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s transformation from a miserly old man to a generous and kind-hearted individual is well-known to many. [...]

Charles Dickens' beloved novella, "A Christmas Carol," is a story of transformation and redemption, centered around the character of Ebenezer Scrooge. However, one character who stands out as a beacon of joy and generosity is [...]

“These are but the spirit of things that have been.” The metaphorical words of the Ghost of Christmas Past are typical of Dickens’ melodramatic writing style. Set in Victorian England, a time rife with greed and social [...]

A Christmas Carol was about a man named Ebenezer Scrooge who is a businessman that is greedy, rude, unhappy, and completely focused on making profits. Scrooge has a series of ghosts appear to him that show him his ways and [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• TOP CATEGORIES
• AS and A Level
• University Degree
• International Baccalaureate
• Uncategorised
• 5 Star Essays
• Study Tools
• Study Guides
• Meet the Team
• English Literature
• Prose Fiction
• Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol Essay.

Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is a morality tale of a selfish and bitter Ebenezer Scrooge and his visits from 3 spirits representing his past, present and future, bringing him into a complete change of character and reconciliation for his wrongs. It is based in a gloomy social divided 19 th  century London. The story is split between 5 staves (chapters). For my essay I will explore the language techniques such as repetition, exaggeration, similes, pathetic fallacy etc that Dickens has used to establish and illustrate his points and views through the story A Christmas Carol.

One technique Dickens successfully merged into the story structure is pathetic fallacy. In the first stave negative points of the weather is used to describe scrooges character, such as “The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect”, Dickens did this to give the reader an insight into scrooge, so they see how much of a cold person he is and how upon meeting him themselves his presence would be like harsh weather. The use of pathetic fallacy could also be linked to scrooge himself, rain, snow, hail and sleet are all weather conditions that are cold themselves and bring a chill through those who experience them, that could also be said for Scrooge. Scrooge himself is a cold person, so he brings about a cold atmosphere around him and spreads his coldness to others through the way he treats them.

In the last stave Dickens use of pathetic fallacy is switched completely from negative to positive. He does this through a dramatic change of how the weather is described, phrases such as “No fog, no mist”. By saying there is no fog or mist in the sky, it is meaning that the harshness of the weather has gone and there is nice weather that remains now, which represents all the unpleasantness and nasty points of scrooges character have vanished, and to show the reader that his character has transformed, and that he is a changed, good person. Dickens wanted to show two completely different types of pathetic fallacy to create a contrast between scrooge in the first and last stave that the reader can obviously see.

Dickens use of adjectives in the first stave describes scrooge’s character very negatively. Phrases such as “his eyes red, his thin lips blue” are used to describe scrooge’s appearance. This brings the reader to think of scrooge as an ugly man. Under typical thinking the reader may link his appearance to his personality and think of him as an all-round nasty and vulgar man. Dickens did this to strengthen the opinion of scrooge for the reader and sets them up for a big contrast between the first and last staves.

Dickens use of adjectives changes dramatically in the last stave. Phrases such as “He looked so irresistibly pleasant” are used to describe scrooge. Scrooges appearance has seemed to also transform somewhat to the first stave, as if along with his personality, now all the evil and nastiness has been taken out his appearance has adjusted to that as well. The reader now sees scrooge in a completely different light, now that his personality and his appearance has changed he is now seen as a completely transformed person.

Dickens use of adverbs/verbs in the first stave describes scrooge’s character very negatively. Words such as “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping” are used to describe scrooge, the words link to how tight he is with his money, and how money hungry he is. The verbs themselves sound quite threatening, and so the reader would feel threatened towards such a person as he. Dickens wanted to create a negative view of scrooge for the reader and so by using verbs that describe his actions in a dramatically negative way and make him sound like a money-mongering all around bad person.

This is a preview of the whole essay

In the last stave Dickens describes and makes scrooges actions sound much brighter and positive in comparison to his actions in the first stave with the use of nicer verbs/adverbs. Verbs such as “fluttered and so glowing” were used to describe scrooge’s actions. The words themselves fluttered and glowing are positive and sound nice, Dickens used words like this to add to scrooges newly found self, and for the reader to see along with a better appearance and transformed personality; his actions are also positive and nice. The term glowing could also be linked with the warmness and the renewing of his character; instead of bringing a dark atmosphere around with him, a certain glow is around him bringing to light to others of his change within himself.

Dickens wanted to put across this idea of rich people being selfish, un-compassionate people. As in Victorian society a blatant social divide of the rich and poor was evident. A sense that people in high society had was that they were more important than those poorer than themselves, and so they’re greed kept their money and anything they had to share was kept to themselves. Dickens’ also shows the appreciation and happiness of the little poor people had and how infact they were richer in life than the rich people were in their wealth.  He uses this with the example to Bob Cratchit’s family with such remarks as “Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.” This shows an emotion not seen in the cold-hearted representation of rich people in A Christmas Carol.

Similes are another language technique that dickens has developed and used to create a dramatic sense of scrooges character. A simile used to describe scrooge for example is “Hard and sharp as flint” this gives the impression that scrooge himself is a person with a hard exterior, almost impenetrable for emotion to break through. He is sharp within the sense of his wit, he talks down to those he opposes and with his sharp wit attacks them verbally, such as where he talks to his nephew and says “What reason have you to be merry?  You're poor enough” this shows the sharpness in his tongue, and the nastiness in his personality. This sort of use of simile gives the reader something to compare scrooge to, and so see deeper into his personality. Here is another simile from the first stave “solitary as an oyster”   an oyster lives on it’s own at the bottom of the ocean isolated, this idea of loneliness could be linked to scrooge. Oysters are also cocooned within a shell; this connects with the thought of scrooge hiding behind a self indulgent front and not letting anyone in emotionally.

Dickens changes his use of simile in the last stave to suit scrooges newly found nice character; this shows a variance between the two opposites in scrooge’s personality in the two staves. For example, here is a simile that describes scrooge in the last stave “I am as happy as an angel” that simile sounds very positive in contrast to ones in the first stave. To say he’s as happy as an angel links into how before he wasn’t happy and his own atmosphere was depressing, but now he is happy and not just happy but as happy as an angelic creature. This shows the reader that scrooge is rejoicing in sight of his own change in character, and how they should feel happy to in response to that.

Repetition is another key technique used to dramatically describe scrooge’s character. A word repeated many times in the first few paragraphs is “dead” with this an instant negative mood is brought upon the reader. With it repeated so many times it keeps the text itself to a low mood, and with the other language techniques combined it makes the reader grasp the pessimistic atmosphere. The word “dead” itself could link to scrooge, as scrooge himself could be seen as dead on the inside, due to his complete lack of emotion shown to anything.

Repetition is used in the same way in the last stave but in a different meaning, not to severely show the bad atmosphere but to highlight and create a positive atmosphere towards the overall affect on the reader. Here is a word repeated often in the last stave “chuckle”. This is a cheerful and enthusiastic word that fits in with scrooge’s new change of character. It makes the reader feel that scrooge is now a humorous person, which he never was before and therefore he has obviously changed.

Scrooges views on Christmas vary between the first and last stave, In the first stave he appears to despise Christmas, and those who think of it as merry, for example he says this to his nephew Bob Cratchit in response to him asking to come round for Christmas dinner “every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart” this shows his reluctance against Christmas and makes the reader think that if such a person hates Christmas, a merry and happy time of the year they themselves must be a nasty person. On the other hand they may want to delve deeper into scrooges character, and maybe think why does this man hate Christmas so much? And so wait to find out until they reach an opinion. Dickens idea was to present people of high society as uncompassionate people, and because Christmas is a time to show love and compassion towards others Dickens uses that against scrooges character and makes him hate Christmas, and so that represents the people of high society in that stereotype as cold uncompassionate people, as wanted by Dickens.

In the last stave scrooges view on Christmas appears to have completely changed and reformed into a love of it. For example when he wakes up after all the spirits have visited him he says “A merry Christmas to everybody!” which of course he would have never said before seriously and meant it. This shows the reader that scrooge’s new character has awakened and therefore loves Christmas, and wishes a merry Christmas to all. Dickens created Scrooges love of Christmas to show a comparison between scrooge’s opinions on Christmas, so the reader can see that along with scrooge’s turn of character he is truly a changed man who now loves Christmas.

Dickens uses exaggeration to create a dramatic emphasis of an atmosphere or scrooge’s character, the meaning for it varies between the first and last stave. For the first stave it is used to emphasize the gloomy mood, for example  there is a long list of verbs that describe scrooge and his actions, here is a section of that list “grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous” this directly hits the reader with a settled opinion on scrooge, and makes them think of him as an awfully negative person. He may not be all these things, but in the readers eyes he is exaggerated to be a somewhat inhumanly, horrible and tightfisted man. For that is what dickens’ believed people like  scrooge and within his high class in society to be in the 19 th  century, and so to give the reader a bias view he used exaggeration to exaggerate scrooges actions in a way the reader would be manipulated into believing that that is what rich people were like.

Exaggeration is used in an intensely positively way in the last stave in contrast to the first stave. The phrase “as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world” is an exaggerated phrase, because of course he isn’t the nicest man in the world, but to the reader he appears to be through pushing this idea to them through exaggeration. Dickens wanted the reader to believe that scrooge had become a new person in complete reconciliation for his past-self, and did so by using exaggeration as a language technique to give an obvious contrast between scrooges transformation.

The change of tone and attitude of scrooges character changes dramatically between the first and last stave, this is shown by the way he acts towards others, and how they perceive his as a person. In the first stave for example it says “No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle” this means that no beggars would bother asking him for anything, as they already know what his response would be, a blatant no. This also links to Dickens’ views on people in high society, he regarded them as selfish and tight people, because during the massive social divide in his lifetime people in rich situations in his opinion were selfish and tight and so to spread his views across he used scrooges character and by showing a beggars negative reaction to scrooge. That shows the divide between the two people, high and low class and a disrespect and tightness from high to low. This makes the reader think that scrooge is a selfish, mean man. Dickens uses scrooges attitude towards others so let the readers form an opinion of how they would react to scrooges character themselves.

Scrooges tone and attitude in the last stave reflects his change of character deeply. Because he is of course a changed man his attitude towards others changed also with that. For example as he is asking a young boy to buy him a turkey he says “Come back with him in less than five minutes and I'll give you half-a-crown." This shows his newly found generosity, as before he would have never given anything willingly to anyone. This helps towards the reader adjusting their opinion of scrooge, and believes that if he is kind to others he must be a kind and changed person himself.

The Young Vic performance showed a modern twist of A Christmas carol . Scrooge was played by a woman in a South African setting, I believe having a woman play scrooge is to show that now that there is a near equality between men and women; women can become in a position like scrooge, have money to themselves and be selfish with it. The story explores Aid’s, prostitution, poverty etc, this highlighted the contrast between old and modern society by exploring these issues from today’s world, this is important because it demonstrates the moral of A Christmas carol  in relevance to today.

In conclusion I believe the moral behind Christmas carol is that in a social divided community it is important to treat everyone the same. This is shown through scrooge’s character, and how he treats people somewhat below him in the social hierarchy as a man quite high in society and how he treats them after he has been visited by the spirits. I think that the moral is still of relevance to today’s world, although there is a large time difference between now and then there still are social divides throughout society, weather it be financially or through the new celebrity status’s there are or anything else, so it is still important to withhold the belief that everyone has the right to be treated the same, rich or poor, famous or not famous. Equality is something that should be of relevance though any time, weather it is a problem or something newly found, it is an issue and still will be until there is complete equality for all.  

Document Details

• Word Count 2596
• Page Count 5
• Subject English

Related Essays

a christmas carol essay Explore the theme of a change in Christmas carol by...

'A Christmas Carol'.

Notice Regarding Political Advertisements on Our Website

A Christmas Carol

University of Roehampton - BA English Literature & Creative Writing

Accomplished Head of English: 10+ Years' Tutoring, Published Poet, and Astute Examiner with a 100% pass rate!

• Qualified Teacher

Notes || Exam Prep || Character Profiles || Themes || Additional Reading & Videos

This topic is included in  Paper 1 . You can find notes and guides for it below.

• Glossary of Key Terms
• Key Terms Flashcards
• Guide to Paper 1
• How to plan and write a top mark essay

Additional Reading & Videos:

• Dickens as a social commentator
• The Appeal of A Christmas Carol by Michel Faber

Character Profiles

• Bob Cratchit
• Ebenezer Scrooge
• Marley's Ghost
• Minor Characters
• Materialism and Wealth
• Poverty and Social Injustice
• Redemption and Change
• Religion and Christmas
• The Supernatural

Connect with PMT Education!

• Revision Courses
• Past Papers
• Solution Banks
• University Admissions
• Numerical Reasoning
• Legal Notices

Miss Huttlestone's GCSE English

Because a whole class of wonderful minds are better than just one!

Model Grade 9 ‘ACC’ essay: Christmas as a Joyful Time

Starting with this extract, explore how far Dickens presents Christmas as a joyful time. (30 marks)

Throughout Dickens’ allegorical novella, his aim is to passionately highlight how such a joyful season can create positive role models for Scrooge. The constant succession of images relating to joy around Christmas may well have been utilised to demonstrate how readers too can learn and improve from the inspirational characters during the novella.

Primarily, within stave 1 of the novella, Dickens utilises the characterisation of Fred as the embodiment of the Christmas spirit with all the positive virtues associated with Christmas. This is evidenced when Fred is described as coming in ‘all in a glow’ with ‘his face ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled.’ Here the use of the noun ‘glow’ connotes light and warmth which is strongly linked to hope and purity. This highlights the contrast between Fred and his uncle Scrooge, who was described as ‘hard and sharp as flint.’ Structurally, introducing Fred immediately after Scrooge focuses the reader’s attention on the clear variation between the two and all of the positive qualities that Scrooge lacks. Furthermore, Fred highlights the belief that Christmas is a time for unity within the social hierarchy although it ‘never puts a scrap of gold or silver’ in his pocket and he frowns upon his uncle, completely consumed in the greed for money. Dickens may have done this to foreshadow Scrooge’s transformation into a better man as a result of the inspirational role models around him during the novella. Alternatively, Dickens may have used Fred and Scrooge together to challenge the situation in Victorian Britain during the Industrial Revolution. Scrooge highlights all of the negative traits of upper class men during this time and Fred is a caring and benevolent character, who cares for people lower down on the social hierarchy.

Secondly, within the extract, Dickens utilises the characterisation of Fezziwig to suggest a clear contrast in the two employers. This is evidenced when Fezziwig ‘laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence.’ The use of the abstract noun ‘benevolence’ suggests the joy and love Fezziwig has for Christmas time. Fezziwig’s kind, caring personality is another role model and catalyst for Scrooge’s transformation. Furthermore, Dickens presents Christmas as a joyful time through Fezziwig’s Christmas party. ‘Fuel was heaped upon the fire’ and the warehouse was transformed into a ‘snug, and warm’ ballroom filled with light. The use of the adjective ‘warm’ connotes kindness and comfort. The detail here in Fezziwig’s scene overwhelms the senses; his generosity is physical, emotional and palpable. As an employer he is the foil of Scrooge and presents all of the positive virtues that Scrooge lacks. Dickens may have done this to highlight a different side to capitalism. Alternatively, presenting Fezziwig as the embodiment of Christmas suggests the importance of Christmas and all of its positive qualities on everyone in society.

Thirdly, within the novella, Dickens utilises the Ghost of Christmas Present to personify Christmas itself. When the ghost appears it has set up an impressive feast of lights and food. This is evidenced when Scrooge’s room is filled with ‘the crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there, and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney.’ The scene is hyperbolic and creates a clear contrast with the frugal state of Scrooge’s past Christmases. The use of the light imagery here provides a clear and undeniable tableau of the joyful Christmases Scrooge can afford but chooses to shun. Dickens may have done this to portray Christmas as a bright and familiar celebration which everyone should celebrate in harmony. A modern reader may feel hope that Scrooge will use his wealth to celebrate Christmas with all of the festivities that Christmas should include and celebrate it with the people that care for him, like his nephew Fred.

Finally, in ‘A Christmas Carol’ Dickens reinforces the theme of Christmas spirit through the Cratchit family. Dickens utilises Bob Cratchit to symbolise the true spirit of Christmas and the importance of family. This is evidenced at the Cratchit’s dinner where nobody remarked that it was ‘a small pudding for a large family’. The adjective ‘small’ emphasises the Cratchit’s lack of luxury and yet their enthusiasm in the scene is palpable. This highlights that this ‘small’ pudding was seen as an indulgence to them which is something Scrooge takes for granted. Furthermore, the Cratchit’s ‘four roomed house’ is filled with an overwhelming sense of energy and excitement, which exists as an antithesis of Scrooge’s ‘old…dreary’ abode. This is evidenced as the youngest Cratchit children ‘danced about the table’ this suggests the sense of energy despite their lowly status in society on this festive day. Dickens may have done this to suggest the importance of Christmas to all members of society. Although the Cratchit family are less fortunate than Scrooge or Fred their Christmas is filled with the love they have for each other. A reader may feel delighted to see this family enjoying Christmas day, contented with what they own and hope that Scrooge will see this family as a role model for his transformation.

Share this:

Published by.

gcseenglishwithmisshuttlestone

Secondary English teacher in Herts. View all posts by gcseenglishwithmisshuttlestone

Leave a comment Cancel reply

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

Scrooge Before...

He was solitary as an oyster, arguably, this is the most famous quote from a christmas carol. the image of the oyster is almost perfect for scrooge at this stage in the book. like an oyster, he keeps himself to himself, hidden beneath a hard shell that he uses to protect himself from the world. however, inside that shell - like scrooge - the oyster is soft and vulnerable. also, and most tellingly, given time an oyster produces one of natures greatest changes - that of creating pearls out of sand. scrooge, like an oyster, has great potential and dickens reminds us of this during the opening of the book., he was as hard and sharp as flint ., scrooge is tough, there's no two ways around it. he's hard - and a life spent alone will certainly make you that - but hard things are also unbending, stubborn and become easily stuck in a single purpose. he isn't flexible or capable of change - he's rigid. the sharpness also suggests that he's dangerous and can hurt you if you get too close, or handle him without care. but someone who is sharp is also smart - quick witted and intelligent - and this is something scrooge clearly is as well. flint is an interesting comparison: it's a rock - which is cold and tough - but it was also quite useful to ancient societies who used it to make hunting weapons. again, it is a reference to scrooge being dangerous if he's not dealt with very carefully., external heat and cold had little influence on scrooge., throughout this opening description, scrooge is often described by comparing him to weather - temperature is the most common; he is cold. here, though, dickens writes that "external" heat and cold had little influence on him, and although this is probably true literally (he doesn't really heat his office or his house) it is also true figuratively. other people's behaviour - be they warm or cold - has no effect on him. you can be nice to him and he won't care, or you can be horrible and, again, he won't care. this image both continues the theme of temperature and emotional states, and highlights how solitary scrooge is., “bah humbug ”, this most famous of scrooge's lines is often misunderstood. these days a humbug is more commonly known as a sweet, but back then if something was "humbug" it was a trick - something that behaves in a deceptive way. suddenly, this quote becomes quite insightful. scrooge is arguing that christmas is a trick - something designed to make people feel in a way that isn't true. when this is brought next to the portly gentlemen, for example, his meaning becomes clear: the two men clearly don't really want to help the poor - hence their being so portly - but christmas has tricked them into behaving in ways that are unnatural for them. scrooge isn't going to fall for that, and continues to act selfishly and irresponsibly regardless of the season, i don't make merry myself at christmas and i can't afford to make idle people merry ., here, scrooge makes two things very clear: he doesn't like christmas, and so he doesn't see why he should pay for other people to enjoy it. crucially, this shows that scrooge isn't a skinflint because he hoards his wealth to use for his own pleasure - since he doesn't enjoy anything - and that he sees a direct correlation between material expense and happiness. he sees everything in material terms: there is an expense to making merry that he "can't afford." also, his use of the adjective "idle" highlights scrooge's deep capitalist leanings: if they haven't the money to afford it themselves, then they must be lazy. the idea that poverty breeds poverty has never occurred to him., “are there no prisons are there no workhouses ”, here, scrooge is suggesting that the poor should simpy use the workhouses and prisons that are setup for them if they can't afford food. on one level, this reveals just how selfish and unreasonable he is: the workhouses were horrendous places to be, and a prison sentence (for stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving family, for example) could see you deported to australia forever. however, there is a defence here: scrooge pays for the prisons and workhouses out of his taxes. in effect, he contributes to the government and supports their policy on how to deal with poverty; his attitude is that, beyond that, the poor aren't his problem. in a lot of ways, this isn't unreasonable. the problem here isn't that scrooge isn't contributing directly to the poor, but that the government's solutions were just so unreasonable., "what right have you to be dismal you're rich enough ." / “what reason have you to be merry you’re poor enough .”, in this brief exchange between fred and scrooge we can see just how different their perceptions of the relationship between happiness and poverty was. scrooge can't see how anyone can be happy unless they're rich enough (and fred was reasonably wealthy, remember) while fred can't see how someone with all scrooge's wealth can be dismal. the reason, it seems clear to fred, is that scrooge's wealth is not making him happy, and fred - as he reveals in stave 3 - "pities" him for it., the poor should die if they want to, as it would " decrease the surplus population .", the most ruthless of all scrooge's sayings. here, he says that poor people who don't want to go to the workhouses should just hurry up and died. he is referencing a famous essay by thomas malthus, who argued that at some point there would simply be too many people for society to support and that there was a "surplus" (an excess) of population. again, scrooge is being very harsh here, but i can't help but wonder whether there weren't people in the audience who looked at the poverty around them and secretly agreed with what scrooge said., if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death., here, jacob marley confirms dickens's fictional theory for what happens after death: if we do not travel amongst people during life, we are condemned to do so once we've died. neither marley nor dickens elabourate on who actually "condemns" us, but the idea is simple: dickens believed that humans were deeply social creatures, as though socialising was as important to us as food or water, and that if we didn't share our experience then something within us died. at the heart of this book is dickens's encouragement that we all share our world, and that we'll enjoy ourselves much more if we do., i wear the chain i forged in life., this is quite crucial: marley wears the chain he made. no-one forced him to be who he was, he did it to himself . the verb "forged" for example refers to something crafted, intentionally. he "chained" himself during life - he actually worked hard to create the chain that now imprisons him. this is a really key thing when looking at dickens's version of life after death. in the book, marley is physically trapped by the things he allowed to take over his life. scrooge is going to be in the same boat: he chained himself with money during this life, and his exitence after death will be marked in the same way., scrooge changing..., scrooge wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used to be., this quote comes from the moment in the book when scrooge sees himself, sitting in the corner of his old school room, all alone. there are two really crucial things about this quote: the first is that this is one of the first times in the book when scrooge shows real emotion - the walls of his cage are beginning to come down. but - he first feels emotion for himself , which begs a question that's quite crucial for us all: did scrooge first feel sympathy for himself because he's innately selfish and learns to feel for others only by learning to feel for himself; or does he feel this way because before we can learn to love others, we all have to learn to love ourselves the other interesting thing about the line is that he is described as "poor" and "forgotten." these two features are crucial because you get the feeling that they somehow represent everything scrooge fears - poverty and ignominy (which is being forgotten.) scrooge is afraid of being poor and forgotten. by the end of the book, he's managed to avoid being poor ever again, but when he sees the final ghost he is forced to face the fact that he will be forgotten and his grave will be "neglected.", the happiness he gives is quite as great as if it had cost a fortune, here, scrooge is describing fezziwig's party, which didn't cost a lot of money by any standards, but it did bring an awful lot of joy. this is the first time scrooge realises that there is not a direct corrolation between financial cost and pleasure - and that, just maybe, he can afford to make both himself and other people merry at christmas., i should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now, after re-living the fun that was had at fezziwig's, scrooge reflects that he would like to speak to bob cratchit, and perhaps even do something similar for him. the use of "able" here is interesting though, because at the time he speaks he is remembering his past and so he isn't able to change any of the things he is seeing, but he is - or he will be - able to speak to bob next time he sees him. this simple word reminds us of thed difference between the things we are able to change, and the things we are not. this, surely, is central to scrooge's eventual lesson., “you fear the world too much,” she answered gently ., belle claims that scrooge "fears" the world "too much." here, she accepts that there are things to fear in the world - though fear is a strong word to use in any circumstance. but she accepts that there are things to fear, but he fears "too much." his terror of poverty is turning him into a monster, and she advises him against it. tellingly, however, like so many of the characters in the book, she does it with good grace and patience. she doesn't rage at him, or scream or shout, she defeats his selfishness with compassion and speaks to him "gently" - almost like a patient parent talking to a wayward child., “i have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion , gain , engrosses you .”, belle's statement is interesting as the scrooge we met in stave one didn't seem like the kind of person who'd ever had "noble aspirations." noble being something that deserves respect, and aspirations being dreams - scrooge from the opening, didn't aspire to anything worthy of respect. this is an important revelation for the audience as it shows that scrooge wasn't always bad, and if he's capable of changing one way, he can definitely change back the other, tiny tim is as " good as gold - and better ", one of the best lines in the book to show that people are more important than profit. tiny tim is as "good as gold" - a phrase that's now become a idiom for describing a nice child. but here, the language is definitely loaded with references to scrooge's understanding of gold - real gold. bob s saying that the happiness tim brings, the real value of people like tim, is even more important than gold - he's better than gold, because he's a good person., dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown , but brave in ribbons, this lovely description of mrs cratchit reminds us both how poor she is - the gown being "twice-turned" means it has been hemmed twice just to keep it together - but it also shows how she feels about it when it says she's "brave in ribbons." in short, mrs cratchit is wearing a rubbish dress - frayed and falling apart - but she's going to draw attention to herself anyway by adding ribbons to show it off. this isn't someone who's shrinking into poverty, this is a woman who is proud of herself no matter how poor she is, i'll give you mr scrooge, the founder of the feast , in one of the classic moments of compassion from the book, bob insists on toasting his miserly boss. on one level this shows that bob cares for scrooge, despite him being a skinflint. but the quote also reminds us of something else: bob does work for scrooge; bob's job only exists because scrooge has built the business, and although bob isn't wealthy he's much better off than a lot of the victorian poor. he has a house, and even a goose for christmas. it's true that scrooge isn't kind or charitable, but there is a powerful school of thought which argues that people like scrooge create jobs and create wealth for others, and, in this respect, without him the cratchits wouldn't have enjoyed any food for christmas dinner., this boy is ignorance . this girl is want . beware them both, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow i see that written which is doom ., this quote from the ghost of christmas present comes as he reveals the two children who have come to him, appealing for his help. with the names of the two children, dickens highlights what he feels are the two biggest ills in society - ignorance of the problem, and the fact that so many children were in need of even the most basic neccessities. but here, the spirit doesn't just say that the children are poor and need help, he turns their presence into an almost apocalyptic warning. the writing on the boy's brow is a clear reference to the biblical revelations when a number of characters have things written on their bodies. also the strange syntax in the phrase "i see written that which is doom" echoes the writing of revelations in the king james bible. regardless of that though, dickens is definitely saying that unless ignorance is erased - unless people wake up to, and understand what is happening around them - then humanity will be doomed., "have they no refuge or resource " cried scrooge., here, scrooge questions where the poor children can go to for help. he recognises that they are young and incapable of defending themselves and for the first time he realises that prisons and workhouses might not be the solutions they present themselves as. i can't help but wonder whether, if scrooge's change really was as significant as the book makes it out to be, he didn't spend most of the new year in parliament making the kind of legislative changes that would have really made a difference to the poor. in fact, an interesting sequal to the book might even see scrooge bankrole fred's move into parliament, as he suggested back in stave 1., “i mean to give him the same chance every year, for i pity him.”, here, fred embodies dickens's belief that families should always be there for each other. fred insists that he will give scrooge the same "chance" - the change of redemption - every year. scrooge can rant and rave all he likes, but fred will be there, with open arms, offering him the chance to save himself. also, however, crucially, fred says he'll do this because he feels "pity" for scrooge. this is quite wild when you think about it. fred is actually feeling sorry for the richest, most selfish person in the book; a man so selfish his name has come to mean horrible and selfish. but dickens wanted to make something very clear: he didn't believe that people like scrooge were evil, he believed that they were just misguided or reacting badly to being hurt. this brings up a really important question for us all: do bad people behave badly because they're 'evil' or because they're damaged this question is so important for anyone who wants to actually fix the problems in society, rather than just sitting there complaining about them. do people who behave badly need to be punished or supported, lead on time is precious to me., when the first ghost arrives, scrooge has his bed curtains pulled aside for him. for the second ghost, scrooge pulls them aside himself. now, withh the third ghost, scrooge demands that the ghost take him on his journey. "lead on" he says, using a simple imperative. but, most importantly, he recognises that time is precious . he's realised the most important thing: there is no amount of money you can lose that you can't get back, but once time has gone it is gone forever. scrooge's value system has changed and with that his entire personality has been made anew - born again, you could say., it’s likely to be a very cheap funeral, the two bankers are discussing the death of someone during the opening of stave 4, and although we know it's scrooge, scrooge himself refuses to see the fact. here, they mention that it is likely to be a very "cheap" funeral, obviously a dig at the fact that despite scrooge's wealth no-one feels the need to remember him with anything lavish. it's interesting to link this back to the fact that stave one tells us that scrooge actually likes darkness "because it is cheap." scrooge likes cheap things, because they're cheap. i think there's also something telling in the fact that scrooge didn't organise his own funeral - he could have spent his entire fortune on it if he wanted (he had no-one else to leave it to, after all) but he didn't. arguably, this is because he never really faced up to the fact that he would die, and that this is why he didn't celebate his life more passionately, but also - arguably - scrooge just doesn't like that kind of stuff. there is a case for saying that the scrooge we met at the beginning of the book would have wanted a cheap funeral, and in fact i can imagine that even the newly reborn scrooge from stave five would have been happier donating his money to a charity rather than spending it on an expensive coffin for him to rot in. but that's just the kinda guy i think scrooge was..., it was a happier house for this man’s death, this line comes from the end of the book, where two people who were indebted to scrooge reluctantly celebrate his passing away. the "house" is often used as a symbol in a christmas carol. scrooge's house played hide and seek when it was little and at the beginning of the book it's been lost (a little like scrooge.) fred's house is the home of their christmas, and his inviting scrooge to join him is a symbol of him inviting scrooge into his home, into the bosom of his family. the cratchits come together at christmas at their house, etc... in many ways, the house represents the family. here, the house, and the people inside it, are happier for scrooge's death., i hope to live to be a better man from what i was., scrooge hasn't chagned yet, but he's taken the most important first step: he hopes to be a better man. this humility is not something we would have seen from scrooge in stave one, who was set in his ways and incapable of showing anything like insecurity. the old scrooge wouldn't have tried anything he didn't already know he was good at, this one can have "hopes" because hopes are, by definition, things you think might not happen, but might happen. until we can accept that we might fail at something, we can't achieve anything new and we don't have the right to hope or dream of anything. at this point scrooge may be hoping to become a better man than he once was, but he's already showing himself to be a braver one., upon the stone of the neglected grave… ebenezer scrooge, scrooge sees his own neglected grave and the horrific reality of who he has become finally hits home. though it's never really explored in any depth, scrooge strikes me as the kind of person who really thinks he's got life mastered, while everyone else has missed the point of it. i can almost imagine that somwhere in his head he imagines that one day the rest of the world will all say - ohhhhh, scrooge was right all along but the truth that he wasn't right. he was wrong. and the fact that he was born and died and no-one remembered him was, for dickens, proof of the fact. this quote is also crucial as it links so directly to when scrooge first sees himself in the school room, where he was a "neglected" child. scrooge was raised as a neglected child, and, as a result, he neglects the world; and as a result of that he becomes a neglected man and his grave is, in turn, neglected. in this version of his life, scrooge never broke the pattern of behaviour. however, if he can leave behind his past, break the cycle and stop ignoring the world then there is every chance he can avoid becoming that which he most fears., scrooge after..., i will honour christmas in my heart , and keep it all the year., scrooge has decided to keep christmas all year... but i don't think he means he'll be draping holly and ivy over his door during july, because for scrooge - and for the book in general - christmas is not a moment in the calendar, it's a set of christian ideals: kindness, forgiveness, compassion, charity and joy. these are the things that scrooge will honour, respect and venerate. and good for him, i am as light as a feather , i am as happy as an angel , i am as merry as a schoolboy ., there are three consecutive similes here, and each one relates to something specific in the book: his being light is a clear reference to the chain he feels that he is no longer wearing. also, he is no longer the "covetous old sinner" that he was in stave one and is now an angel of happiness (this one is interesting as it draws a clear correlation between being happy and being good. dickens felt that if you were good you wouldn't be happier, and the simile here highlights that.) and he is merry as a school boy. this is a little more challenging as scrooge clearly wasn't always happy when he was at school really, though, this image is more about the joy that dickens saw in the playfulness of youth, really this is like scrooge saying he has become young again, which leads on to..., i’m quite a baby . never mind. i’d rather be a baby ., this is the quintessential (which means perfect) image of scrooge as having been born again. in many ways the book is really a coming of age story, told backwards. scrooge starts as an embittered old man, and becomes filled with the wonder of youth by the end. he unlearns what he's learnt during his life and as he becomes more innocent as he becomes saved. it harks back to that line when he breaks up with belle and claims that he's "grown wiser" as he grew more selfish, but now - at the end - he has decided that he'd rather not have that kind of wisdom, and he'd rather be a baby. he'd be happier like that., to tiny tim, who did not die, he was a second father ., scrooge starts the book without much of a family - he rejects fred (and possibly belle before him,) because he was so painfully rejected by his own father. but, by the end he visits fred and reconnects with his own family that way, and - most importantly - he becomes a "second father" to tiny tim. this is crucial: on one level, he's now ready to have a child himself, which means taking responsibility for someone else; and on another level, scrooge is taking care of someone not of his bloodline. because for dickens, family wasn't just about the people you were related to, he saw families as being communities or social groups; he saw how families merged through marriage; and, most importantly, he saw how we were all connected to each other through our shared humanity. and this, for dickens, was the most important family of all. it's also telling that scrooge's new son is the weakest member of the cast - a disabled boy from a poor background, whose nickname reminds us how small he is. by taking tiny tim under his wing, scrooge is symbolically adopting everyone., “and so, as tiny tim observed, god bless us, every one ”, this final line of the novel seems deceptively simple and, as such, difficult to analyse. but the crucial thing here - and a great way to finish any essay - is to focus on the fact that dickens here is talking about "every one" - the capitals (which are wrong) are used by dickens to turn the words into a proper noun, which helps to add emphasis sometimes., so here, dickens is talking about absolutely "every one": poor tiny tim, who was so badly weakened by a misfortune of birth; fred, without whose charitable drive scrooge would never have turned; belle whose compassionate dumping allowed scrooge to reflect on who he was; fezziwig, whose parties added many a smile on christmas; even mrs dilber, who stole scrooge's curtains and tried to sell them on for profit., but, perhaps most importantly, dickens reminds us that god blesses every one - and that includes scrooge, that selfish, grumpy old miser; that " squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner." y es, the message of dickens's book is that even scrooge deserves god's blessings, and if he gets them it might just do him - and everyone else - a whole world of good, the descriptions of the ghosts, the description of the ghost of christmas past, the ghost of christmas past is an interesting vision – it changes shape and size, it has many arms and then a few, it seems distant and close, old and young – in fact it seems riddled with contradictory images. in many ways the vision works like memory can do: it changes depending on perspectives or moods. it's also interesting that the ghost is described as having strong arms and hands " as if its hold were of uncommon strength." this is a great description of the ghost as a memory, because memories - as scrooge is about to learn - can exert an uncommonly powerful hold over us., visually, the ghost appears as a candle - the shot of light from its head, while its outfit is a square of white cloth (it even wanders around holding a candle snuffer that looks like a hat.) seeing it as a candle also helps its role as representing memories as phrases like “holding a candle” for someone mean to remember them, while candles are used in c hurches to remember those who've passed on ., also, scrooge finishes the stave by putting out the candle, which shows him symbolically putting down his past – leaving behind the resentment he has harboured at having lost his childhood to neglect. in this way, like a patient completing therapy, he has faced his past, but can now move on., alongside this, however, you could argue that this creature, who appears to be both young and old, is an image of jesus – who was a baby at christmas and yet who, as the son of god, represents the divine wisdom that christians worship. the most clearly religious image though is how it wears a “tunic of purest white,” as though it is a pure, innocent angel sent to guide him., the description of the ghost of christmas present, the ghost of christmas present greets scrooge from on top of a pile of luxurious christmas fare. it is really in this stave that dickens brings to life the christmas that we all know and love today: the food, the presents, the games, the snow, and good feeling, the parties and generosity. gone are the puritanical values that banned christmas, and, also, to a large degree, gone as well are the memories of christmas as a serious and religious celebration of the birth of christ. christmas is now a time for family, friends and feeling good., the ghost is dressed in green – reminiscent both of the green man from pagan mythology, and also the traditional character of st nicholas or father christmas, who has more recently come to symbolise the holiday period., he greets scrooge with a drink that makes him feel good: the milk of human kindness – though one could be forgiven for seeing an alcoholic connection – and then takes him on a tour of christmases around the country. here, we get the image of a country that is united during this time of year; a place where christmas and britishness are inextricably linked, which would have been incredibly popular for a victorian audience who were in the throws of empire building., the description of the ghost of christmas yet to come, the final ghost appears as a phantom – a “spectre” dressed in black: clearly an image of the grim reaper himself. the final ghost is by far the most scary of the three – it remains silent throughout their time together, only standing by as a guide, and leaving scrooge – and the reader – to work out the story himself. the silent , enigmatic nature of the final spirit is perhaps an interesting commentary on the nature of death itself: death is there, looming over us all, and yet it keeps its secrets to itself, and even now - with all that modern technology has to offer us - death holds its mysteries., one interesting feature of this stave relates to the fact that two people die in it: scrooge and tiny tim: the richest and the poorest people in the book. this reminds us of fred’s line during the beginning of the book – a phrase that dickens later called “the carol philosophy”: “it is only during christmas that we open our shut up hearts and think of each other as being fellow passengers to the grave and not other beings on some other journey.” during this section, scrooge is reminded that we all die in the end, it is the only sure thing in life, and that all we have to work with is the short time that we have down here. towards the end of the book, scrooge has clearly learnt that fact and decides to spend his remaining days sharing his time, his wealth, and enjoying the fruits of his fellow men., quotes that link, often, in an essay, it is good to get quotes from across the book that link to each other. below are some examples:, stave two: a solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still, stave one: solitary as an oyster, stave five: neglected gravestone, scrooge was left alone over christmas, where he was solitary. dickens uses the word to describe scrooge at school but also in his iconic "solitary as an oyster" line. in this way, you could use an analysis of this word to show how scrooge learnt to live in isolation as a child and then grew into it as he got older. also, the fact that scrooge was "neglected" as a child and is then put to rest in a "neglected" grave shows how, without change, scrooge will be reliving his childhood trauma for all eternity., i can't afford to make idle people merry., during stave one, scrooge argues that he can't afford to make people merry. however, upon remembering his time with fezziwig he remembers that it doesn't cost much to make people happy - and that the happiness you can give is as "great" as if it had cost a fortune. arguably, here, scrooge is seeing that all kinds of benefits can come from being a little more generous. is, in fact, money spent on good times money well invested, scrooge's attitudes towards the ghosts changes..., scrooge’s changing attitude is never better highlighted than in his initial responses to the three ghosts., past: "the curtains of his bed were drawn aside, i tell you, by a hand", present: "he put them every one aside with his own hand", future: "lead on time is precious to me", when the ghost of christmas past arrives, the “curtains of his bed were drawn aside… by a hand.” here, it is clear that it is the ghost who makes the move – the ghost actively moves his curtains aside., for the second ghost, scrooge a ffects the change, pulling the curtains aside “with his own hand.” by this stage, scrooge has already begun to see the error of his ways and has realised that he will benefit from the messages he is receiving and so he begins to take agency over the situation., by the time he reaches the third ghost – the ghost of christmas yet to come – he orders the ghost, using the imperative phrase “lead on” he is in control now, and wants the change desperately enough to be forceful about it. he also argues that “time is precious to me.” this is most telling of all: whereas the old scrooge saw little of value beyond his money hole, now he sees the truth that time itself is “precious;” and it is, in fact, the most precious thing we have ..

• Share full article

What Is Italy’s Most Prized Stuffed Pasta?

Each region could well argue for its own, but one may have the strongest case.

Stefano Secchi, the chef and co-owner of New York City’s Rezdôra, created several types of stuffed pasta exclusively for T. Here, a Sardinian specialty, culurgiones filled with potato, pecorino and mint. Credit... Photograph by Sharon Radisch. Set design by Martin Bourne. Background images, from left: Bill Waterson/Alamy; Rubens Alarcon/Alamy

Supported by

By Dawn Davis

Photographs by Sharon Radisch

• May 13, 2024

T’s May 19 Travel issue is dedicated to pasta in Italy, diving deep into the culinary traditions, regional variations and complicated history of the country’s national symbol. Click here for a field guide to stuffed pasta, as an accompaniment to this article.

FOR MUCH OF Italy’s history, ravioli was a luxury reserved for banquet tables or feast days. All pasta was a rarefied food in the Middle Ages, but few forms captured the popular imagination as completely as stuffed pasta, considered the noblest of the species. In “The Decameron,” a 14th-century collection of stories by Giovanni Boccaccio about a group of young Florentines who abandon the city for the countryside during the plague, one of the characters, Maso del Saggio, describes an idyllic landscape to entertain the friends: “On a mountain, all of grated Parmesan cheese, dwell folk that do nought else but make macaroni and raviuoli.” Centuries later, every corner of Italy has its own version of filled pasta, which is broadly referred to as ravioli throughout the country. The “ Encyclopedia of Pasta ” (2009), the Italian food historian Oretta Zanini De Vita’s decades-long effort to catalog Italy’s most popular food, identifies more than 80 types of pasta ripiena (“stuffed pasta”), allowing for countless variations.

Listen to this article, read by Soneela Nankani

Stuffed pasta seems to particularly lend itself to creative interpretation. There are those filled with sweetbreads, pancetta, pears, chard, winter squash or mint-scented ricotta; twisted at the ends like a candy wrapper or serrated on the edges; folded into a triangle or rectangle or made to resemble a coin, a hat or a handkerchief; boiled in salt water or fried and simmered in milk. Sometimes the dough is kneaded with wine, olive oil or spinach.

Until Italy’s unification in 1861, its territory was carved up into several kingdoms, duchies and city-states, each with its own culinary practices. “Pasta may be the country’s pre-eminent food, but that doesn’t make it a unifying dish,” writes the cookbook author Carol Field in the foreword to the “Encyclopedia of Pasta.” “If anything, the hundreds of divergent shapes accentuate Italy’s regional differences and draw attention to the distinctions that define local identities.”

I’d long wondered how one species or subspecies might take hold in a certain area but not another just next door, and how a dish so deeply rooted in a place might morph over time, even if it often didn’t travel more than a few miles. I wanted to know what was behind this “fanatical attachment to tradition,” as the food historian Luca Cesari has called it . Last November in Piedmont, one of the northwestern regions especially known for its stuffed pasta, I set out to trace the origins and evolution of one local specialty, agnolotti del plin, shaped like a tiny, bulging envelope and traditionally stuffed with meat (typically a combination of veal, pork and rabbit), seasonal greens (maybe savoy cabbage, escarole, spinach or borage), eggs and Parmesan. It’s an unusually demanding type of pasta to construct and is particularly ubiquitous in the area known as the Langhe, a hilly swath of land planted with row after row of nebbiolo grapes in the southern Piedmont, about an hour’s drive south of Turin. First documented here in the mid-1800s, agnolotti del plin (in the Langhe dialect, plin means “pinch”) has only grown in popularity in the past few decades, and now populates virtually every menu, Sunday lunch or holiday feast in the area.

OPINIONS DIFFER ON how or when stuffed pasta surfaced in Italy. Karima Moyer-Nocchi , a friend and culinary historian who teaches at the University of Siena, theorizes that it’s the conceptual descendant of the tourte, a pie often found on the tables of nobility in the Middle Ages. Owing to the medieval fascination with miniaturization, the pasta for ravioli was essentially little tourtes or tortelli. The word “ravioli” itself likely derives from the Italian riavvolgere ( avvolgere literally means “to wrap”) and first appeared in the written record in the 13th century when Salimbene Di Adam, a Franciscan friar from Parma known for his chronicles of his gluttonous travels around France and Italy, mentioned eating “raviolos sine crusta de pasta” — in this case the morsel of food without the “usual envelope of pastry” during the feast of St. Clare.

Zanini De Vita suggests that stuffed pasta arrived on the continent even earlier: Brought to Sicily by Muslim conquerors as “a type of ravioli called sambusaj, a triangular pasta container filled with ground meat,” it then likely migrated north thanks to trade with the maritime republic of Genoa in Liguria, Piedmont’s neighboring region. From there, ravioli made its way into the courtly kitchens of the northern provinces.

Agnolotti del plin has its own hazy back story. Centuries before the House of Savoy ruled the Kingdom of Italy, from 1861 to 1946, the dynasty controlled the Piedmont, starting in the 1600s. Bordering the Alps in the north, south and west, the region was, and remains, home to some of the peninsula’s richest and most versatile farmland, as well as immense tracts of alpine pastures, allowing for a seemingly endless supply of ingredients. When Turin served as the seat for the House of Savoy, noble families built estates throughout the countryside. Legends ascribe the dish to a chef of one of these households, a man named Angelino (a dialect translation of Angelot) who was asked to prepare a celebratory meal after the family fended off an attack on their castle. He salvaged what he could from the pantry, roasted the meats, finely chopped the vegetables and stuffed it all into pasta dough. The sauce was a simple jus made from the roasted meats.

But Ugo Alciati, the 57-year-old head chef of Guido Ristorante at the Fontanafredda wine estate about 50 miles south of Turin, is skeptical (as is everyone else I meet in the Piedmont). “It’s a story told to create a sense of mystery,” he tells me when Karima and I stop by for dinner.

His grandmother Pierina Fogliati, born at the turn of the 20th century in the nearby village of Costigliole d’Asti to the contadini , or peasant class, learned to make agnolotti del plin at home and when she was called upon as an extra hand in the kitchens of a wealthy family. The recipe she passed down to her children has much in common with the one in the cookbook “La Cucina Sana, Economica ed Elegante Secondo le Stagioni” (“Healthy, Economical and Elegant Cuisine According to the Seasons”), published in 1846 by Francesco Chapusot, the chef to the English ambassador in Turin. Chapusot instructs the home cook to roll the dough (made of flour, fresh butter, milk and eggs) into a very thin, wide sheet and paint it, using a feather brush, with a beaten egg. Then, he writes, place hazelnut-size bits of filling about an inch apart across the entire sheet, lay another sheet of dough on top, pinch the dough around the filling to make little mounds and slice around the mounds to create many small packets the width of a half-scudo (an Italian coin discontinued in the 19th century). For the filling, Chapusot advises a blend of “fatty meats,” nutmeg, Parmesan, egg, cream, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper. Fogliati’s recipe calls for escarole, as well, and a combination of veal, pork and rabbit. She served hers with a meaty ragù or a simple butter sauce. Others add the agnolotti to a broth.

In 1961, Aliciati’s mother and father opened the first incarnation of Guido Ristorante in Costigliole d’Asti, with Fogliati’s agnolotti as a mainstay. When Aliciati and his brothers took over the restaurant in 1997, later moving it to Fontanafredda, he tweaked the family recipes. He serves them two ways: agnolotti in a shallow bowl with a rich veal sauce and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano; or bite-size with nutmeg in the filling, heaped on a large linen napkin, a local custom. (For some Piedmontese chefs, serving the agnolotti this way nods to the Catholic Eucharist ritual, in which the priest, commemorating the Last Supper, would lay out altar linens; clergy were known to cover a table with a piece of hemp fabric and then pile it with freshly made plin.) The sauceless version brings out the flavor of the roasted meat tucked inside; infused with the nutmeg, it has an unexpected peppery sweetness.

LIKE SO MANY dishes conceived in the kitchens of the upper class — “the eating class,” as Karima calls them — agnolotti del plin eventually found its way into ordinary homes. “The laborers who made the food became the gatekeepers of the recipe,” she says. Luciano Bertello, a cookbook author who specializes in the Langhe area, adds that the dish had “sacred” value when prepared by home cooks and was reserved for Carnevale, Easter, Christmas and the patronal feast. “It symbolized — and still does — great holidays and family togetherness,” he says.

“It’s the dish of Sunday, the family day, because you spend so much time making it,” says the chef Davide Palluda, 52, who grew up in the village of Canale, across the Tanaro River from Fontanafredda. According to Piermassimo Cirio, a co-owner of Madonna della Neve in the Langhe town of Cessole and perhaps the restaurant best known for its agnolotti del plin (it’s been serving it since Piermassimo’s family took over in 1952), around the 1920s and ’30s, the contadini would also eat plin in a cup mixed with wine to fortify themselves for daily fieldwork. Instead of three meats, they might use only rabbit or whatever was available. There might not be any sauce at all.

At All’Enoteca, Palluda’s Michelin-starred restaurant in Canale, he applies a technical rigor to his old family recipe. “We prepare the meats three different ways: We cook the pig in milk, roast the rabbit and gently cook the veal on the stovetop,” he says. For the pasta itself, “you have to get the percentage of flour to eggs just right so, when preparing the dough, it’s just translucent enough that you can see the shadow of someone on the other side.” Then there’s the proportion of pasta to stuffing. In the spring, Palluda, who regularly experiments with the fillings, substitutes the usual escarole for asparagus, stinging nettles or chard, or for a mix of morels and coffee. Anytime you change the stuffing, he adds, you have to change the percentage of egg yolk to flour in the dough or risk splitting open the skin of the fragile dumpling.

Twenty miles south of Canale, in the tidy hilltop town of Roddino, Gemma Boeri, 75, is less exacting with her agnolotti and more intent on preserving the ritual of making it. Every Thursday morning, as she has for the past 38 years, Boeri enlists her friends to help her prepare a batch for the week for her Osteria da Gemma. The day I was there, three of the four volunteers were women in their 80s. They’d been helping Boeri make her agnolotti for decades. That day, they spent three hours making thousands of agnolotti before sitting down for antipasti and a lunch of fresh pasta.

Though the dish is centuries old, the allegiance to it, like that to most other locally beloved stuffed pastas, whether the tortellini of Bologna or the culurgiones of Sardinia, is a relatively new phenomenon. Bertello points out that pasta became everyday fare for most Italians, particularly Piedmontese, during the economic boom of the 1960s. Many turned to these sacred dishes as a way to stay connected to the distant past, revealing, as Cesari writes, “a powerful longing for vanished roots, and the hope of recovering them through traditional cooking.” And in the case of agnolotti and other homemade pasta, where preparing the dish can be as communal an act as eating it, stuffed pasta serves another purpose, too: binding you to the people around you.

Read by Soneela Nankani

Narration produced by Krish Seenivasan and Emma Kehlbeck

Engineered by Joel Thibodeau

Set design by Martin Bourne. Fabric printing: Dyenamix, Inc. Photo assistant: Michelle Garcia.

Explore T Magazine

Redefining Minimalism:  A new generation of Black female artists is finding creative freedom  by making rigorously pared-down work.

From Novelist to Pop Star:  In fiction, Ali Sethi wrote about being queer in Pakistan. Now he’s singing his story .

A Philip Johnson House Reopens:  Following an extensive restoration, the Brick House , the other half of the architect’s famous Glass House, is once again receiving visitors.

The Spirit That Guides Betye Saar:  The 97-year-old artist’s newest works reflect her decades-long interest in cultural artifacts and self-emancipation .

Mountain Homes in Ecuador:  A group of architects is creating disjointed structures  that, in response to their unsteady terrain, are a new model in cooperative building.

Advertisement