PASTIFICO RONDANO
The artisanal processing of flour has been part of our family heritage since ancient times.
As early as 1889, our ancestors owned an old bakery in Cantavenna (Alessandria) where they skilfully processed flour to make bread, pasta and desserts, which were then sold in the village.
Those were difficult times, when the ritual of “vanta fa j'agnolòt” (we must make agnolotti) was practised only during the main religious festivals of the village, and this delicacy was consumed only within the family or farmhouse, with the aim of not wasting the less noble cuts of precious raw materials such as pork, beef and rabbit. For 150 years, baking was the activity that fed and gave honour to our ancestors, who were always sincere and hard-working people.
The earliest historical records date back to the 1920s and 1930s, when Rondano Paolo, known as Lino (from Paolin), owner of the old family bakery (inherited from his father and grandfather), together with his wife Antonietta and their children, already produced fresh dried pasta using rudimentary wooden drying racks equipped with a handmade and rudimental trabatto (pre-drying machine) that he had built himself. It was at the forefront of the production of “dried” pasta (not yet dried). In fact, that drying system was the attraction of the entire hilly area around Cantavenna: the dull noise of the trabatto, the undulating movement, the aromas of eggs, fresh flour, and freshly baked bread originated by these processes and the air filled with the scent of fresh flour, catapulted friends and customers into an almost magical world that everyone remembers with a veil of nostalgia.
After the Second World War, the economy of was in dire strait. For this reason, in order to improve their prospects, around 1945, Paolin (Lino)'s children were forced to leave Cantavenna and move to what was then seen as the city of opportunity and achievement: Moncalvo.
In 1945, Teresina Rondano (daughter of Rondano “Lino”) and her husband, Vincenzo Ricossa, known as Pio, took over the old grocery shop located “su dla Fracia” and continued the tradition of the previous shop by expanding the workshop for pasta production. In 1947, Teresina's brother, Giuseppe Rondano, known to everyone as Pinin, joined them, leaving the family bakery in Cantavenna and moving to Moncalvo with his wife (Carla) and young children (Paola and Walter).
For almost a century now, we have been running our artisan food business in the historic and commercial heart of Moncalvo. Today, the traditional family management of our Pastificio Gastronomia continues with Cristiana, the cook, and Virgilio (son of Paola Rondano), the pasta maker. The old “manera da fà da mangià” (the way of preparing food), while remaining absolutely faithful to the recipes and methods of the past, has adapted to strict legal regulations and has practically doubled in production, with one sector entirely dedicated to traditional gastronomy and another completely dedicated to pasta making.
Pastificio Gastronomia Rondano has distinctive production and quality characteristics that set it apart from many other companies in the sector. Its micro-business size, not too large to be considered industrial and not too small to guarantee the standards required for sales in line with the expectations of this millennium, is the recognised and consolidated strength of our company, which revolves, first and foremost, around the skills and sensitivity of its two interpreters, Cristiana and Virgilio, who draw on their love for Monferrato and Moncalvo as the driving force behind their passion and respect for all.
