The truth of the story almost doesn’t matter. The romance of it charms you, especially in Gianni Tomasi’s telling, the way he becomes animated, foisting shots of the local grappa on you as he recounts the origins of canederli, northern Italy’s go-to bready meatballs studded with bits of cured pork and cheese.

As he tells it, just before World War I, German soldiers tromped down from the Alps into his hometown of Trento, now a university city tucked into the valleys of the Trentino–Alto Adige region near the border with Liechtenstein. They approached a farm and told the elderly woman there to feed them or they’d destroy her village.

The woman wasn’t prepared to feed an invading army. But what she lacked in mise en place she made up for in ingenuity. She had ample stale bread, some eggs, bits of speck—the local cured pork—and cheese. She mixed all of this together, formed it into meatball-like orbs, then simmered and served them in a meaty broth she also apparently had in abundance. The soldiers were so satisfied and impressed they spared the community.

As I said, who cares if it’s true? Especially when Tomasi’s subterranean restaurant—Antica Trattoria al Volt, so named for its vaulted stone ceilings—serves some of the most tender, most incredibly savory canederli I encountered during a visit to the region. It’s the sort of place where gossipy elderly men sit elbow-to-elbow with lunching students, where carafes of house wine flow freely and the cooking is done by Tomasi’s wife and daughter.

Tomasi is the fourth owner of the trattoria, which dates to 1894; he has had it for 28 of those years. As he shuffles between tables, scolding customers who try to sit before he has finished setting the silverware, it’s hard to judge his age. He might be weathered for 70 or rather sprightly for 100. Again, the truth really doesn’t matter.

But that origin story? Seems a stretch. Versions of canederli are served across northern Italy and south­ern Germany and Austria (where they are known as Semmelknödel). I suppose the soldiers might have brought home with them the elderly woman’s village-­saving recipe, and if that telling works for you, no one is worse for it.

When Tomasi’s canederli arrived at my table, it was two bready balls visibly studded with meat and herbs resting in a shallow bowl of steaming broth. Honestly they weren’t much to look at. Kind of pale and lumpy looking. But break into one with a spoon and scoop up some of that broth?

They were everything you want on a cold, wet day. The steaming broth was rich and well seasoned. And the canederli, though they looked heavy and dense, remained light, softened with broth but not sodden. They were savory and rich and a meal unto themselves.

You know where this is going, right? Tomasi and his wife wouldn’t share the recipe. He grew up eating his grandfather’s version, and his recipe is based on that. But that’s where it stops. Happily, Trento is a charming medieval town centered around winding cobblestone streets lined with seemingly endless food shops. Pastificio Le Delizie is one of them, and I was lucky enough to dart into it later that day to escape a miserably cold rain.

There, Mauro Pisoni and Pietro Gamboni stuff and fold thousands of ravioli and tortelloni daily. They also make canederli that matched if not rivaled Tomasi’s.

Pisoni and Gamboni also were generous with their recipe. They make thousands a day and offered to whip up a small batch for me. They started with the bread, a mix of fine white breadcrumbs, slightly larger almost panko-style bits and large crouton-like hunks. That mix mattered, as in both Tomasi’s and their canederli, the combination created texture.

To this, they added ample black pepper, salt, chopped parsley and a pinch of nutmeg, an almost ubiquitous savory seasoning in these parts. A splash of milk moistened the whole affair before they mixed it gently by hand, being careful not to compress it. That light touch was key to keeping the cooked canederli from becoming dense and heavy.

This was combined with ground speck and mortadella, a delicious mixture of cured meats, beaten eggs, grated Parmesan and a bit of flour, creating a paste-like dough. With slightly wet hands, they formed it into balls, each slightly larger than a golf ball, which they dusted with fine breadcrumbs to prevent them from sticking together.

I took the raw canederli to my flat that night and whipped up a broth not nearly as good as I’d had at Antica Trattoria al Volt. It didn’t matter. They were stunning. Light, savory and hearty. I loved that they were more bread than meat, yet held together for cooking like the sturdiest meatball.

It doesn’t take many to make a meal, whether you’re a German soldier making moves on a small Italian town or just a chilly, wet, hungry journalist.