For recipe see Italy Revisited/Recipes/ "Italian Pasta Dishes"

In Italy, prior to World War II, cannelloni was made for very special occasions. In the countryside any pasta that was stuffed and/or baked (pasta al forno) was generally done only for weddings or baptisms. In well-to-do households they may have made it at Christmas or Easter, but in poorer households they generally had chicken with salad and that was about it. Of course, in North America Italians made up for what they were deprived of. Cannelloni became a standard dish for Christmas and/or Easter in most households. In the 1960s At my mother's house if she made cannelloni for Christmas than she would make lasagna for New Year's (or vice versa). Back then it wouldn't be Christmas or Easter without home-made pasta. By the late 1980s fewer and fewer Italians (including my own mother) were making their own pastas. Either they bought "fresh" pasta at a high-end Italian pastry shop or they would settle for ravioli. Somehow Easter and Christmas are no longer quite the same at this point in time -- many first generation Italians past on (hopefully to a better world than is ours) and second generation Italians married, had their own children and their own families to please, and suddenly the people round the dinner table were quite not the same anymore. Some families managed to stay together and share the holidays, but many other families went their separate ways, quite happy Not to cook for a large group of people. Italian families are no longer bound by the old codes of conduct -- meaning, just because one belongs to a family by blood is no guarantee that one will be included in its get-togethers (Let alone be loved!). That's the North American way and slowly but surely it is becoming the Italian way as well.....My mother usually makes half of the cannelloni stuffed with ricotta and the other half with veal. Generally, she makes this dish at Christmas, Easter and any other time there is a special gathering at her house. Often, my mother makes the cannelloni and then freezes them. The night before they are needed she places the frozen cannelloni in the fridge to thaw them out. She then bakes the thawed-out cannelloni in freshly-made tomato sauce. Sometimes one or two of the cannelloni are a bit burnt, but generally speaking they are heavenly. Photo: Mary Melfi.

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