Fried creams – I Rombi del Doge
The rumble, or lozenge, is a widely used heraldic figure and ended up giving its name to the fried cream cooked by the Venetians and cut into this geometric shape, so exquisite that it became a delicacy worthy of a prince, or indeed a doge, the most prominent figure of the Very serene. All the Venetian bàcari, the typical taverns, served these exquisite and fragrant “rombi del doge”, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, from the day of Saint Anthony until Shrove Tuesday, according to tradition, possibly accompanied by a nice glass of passito wine.
The fritola – An affair of state
Born in the fourteenth century and proclaimed in the eighteenth century «national dessert of the Serenissima, the fritole were prepared exclusively by members of the renowned fritoleri guild who handed down the recipe from father to son, and also sold on street corners, stuck while still boiling in a wooden skewer to avoid greasing your fingers and sweeten generously with a special container with holes in it. L’art of local fryers was so appreciated that Goldoniin his famous comedy The little squareplaces among the protagonists the fritolera Orsola, a figure that painters like Pietro Longhi have immortalized on their canvases, indispensable protagonists of the Carnival.
Masks – Black and White
Wearing the Bautathe most famous Venetian disguise, the face remained hidden under a white mask, the Larvawhich covered three quarters of the face and also altered the voice, making the wearer unrecognizable, so much so that the Inquisition objected to the indiscriminate use that many aristocrats made of it even outside the carnival period to combine cooked and raw . La Moretta, also called “mute servant”, was instead dark and oval in shape; reserved for women, to wear it one had to “bite” a button placed inside at mouth level, so that the wearer could not speak. They preferred it to be popular and bourgeois.
Neapolitan pasticcio – A seducer’s dish
Giacomo Casanova was a protagonist of the Venetian Carnival. A refined gourmet, in his memoirs he mentions among his favorite dishes the macaroni pie «prepared by a good Neapolitan chef, perfect for days of celebration and joy. At that time the tomato had not yet entered the kitchens as a common ingredient the pasta (“maccherone” was the common name for various shapes, short and long) was also seasoned with sugar and honey. Our recipe is taken from a Neapolitan repertoire from the second half of the eighteenth century, Il cuoco galante by Vincenzo Corrado.
The historical text was written by the expert Marina Migliavacca.
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