Lumachelle di Urbino con Prosciutto e Noce Moscata
Urbino, Marche
Small spiral egg pasta ('little snails') unique to the Urbino area of the Marche: a compact pasta dough cut into small discs and shaped around a thin wooden rod to create a spiral tube, then sauced with a butter-based sauce of prosciutto di Carpegna (the local Pesaro-Urbino cured ham) and a generous scraping of nutmeg. One of the most refined pasta shapes in central Italy, associated with the ducal Renaissance court of Urbino where elaborate pasta forms were fashionable.