when I was growing up - tortellini just was not commercially available - except for this one tiny mom and pop store a couple towns over where the Gramma occasionally sold a batch - (if she liked you - and she felt like it and if it wasn't the 2nd tuesday or a month with an "r" in it).

*MY* Nonni made fresh tortellini - heaven on earth! it took us YEARS to get her recipe out of her - and then of course there was the problem of getting the "right" ingredients. Do you know how hard it was to get mortedella in a small New England town 30 years ago? (or for that matter in rural NY *NOW*)

The fun part of course was stuffing them - we would have a contest to see who could enclose the most filling in the smallest wrapper. Also contests to see who could do the most in a minute.