Keeping it Sweet and Festive

As we get closer and closer to Easter and deeper and deeper into the Lenten season, “carnevale” has been left behind. All of the “castagne” (deep fat-fried dough balls, the size of a plum spiced with orange-peel and sweetened with honey); the “chiacchiere della nonna” (grandmas sweet fritters): chiacchiere means chat and that always does include a bit of local gossip. The women chat while they are making them and they chat over coffee while they are eating them. They are dusted with powdered sugar which in Italian is called: “zucchero al velo”, sugar veil. Are they wrapping their gossip in a veil? Covering their gossip with sweetness?

So the Italians have fattened up for the lean season. But they resisted putting aside those pastries until the second sunday of Lent. They tend to anticipate celebration way in advance and hang onto it well after its season. It no longer looks as it did on Fat Tuesday, like Disney Land: Betty Boop with a Torrero, Renaissance dames escorted by Superman or Star Wars characters, a harlequin clown with a Turkish belly-dancer or Snow White with Pulcinella. The children who were strewing confetti and serpentines when on the promenade by the sea every Sunday, indulged with gobs of Neapolitan candies and running wild and laughing and full of caprices are now in a more serious phase of the calendar year. The shop windows display First Communion dresses and suits. However, the “pastiera” is appearing in bakeries already, that Easter tart composed of ricotta cheese, sweetened and tempered with candied citrus and orange peel. It is a type of cheesecake. Also the “colomba” (Easter cake in the form of a dove) is already in evidence everywhere – groceries and bakeries. After all, we did celebrate Laetare Sunday; a joyful break after so much penitence and sacrifice!!! In Italy, there is NO DARK GLOOM. They just keep it sweet and festive…

Ciao, Sally Fougerousse