I’ve never been to Massa and Carrara, two towns in the northwest of Tuscany, wedged between Liguria and Emilia Romagna. But a few years ago during a book launch in Volterra, I met Angela, a bookshop owner whose family had moved there from Massa and Carrara. She gave me the chance to get to know her culinary heritage. She gifted me a family recipe for torta di riso carrarina, a rice pudding cake belonging to the culinary traditions of that area. She told me they bake this cake for Easter or for Italian Liberation Day, on the 25th of April. When having an oven in a household was rare, the women would bring large aluminum trays filled almost to the brim with torta carrarina to their local bakeries the day before the holiday. Each tray was marked with the family initials—heaven forbid you brought back someone else’s cake. The day …