fritole | Venice: I am not making this up

I love a sign like this -- sounds more like a command than an invitation.

As if we needed any excuse — or permission — to gorge on food loaded with fat and sugar, today it’s take no prisoners. I haven’t found any special dispensation that promises that the fat and sugar consumed today will do less, or no, damage as they make themselves comfortable in their new home on your hips and in your arteries. But we can pretend. It’s Carnival, after all. No rules.

So the short version of today’s amusement can be summed up as: Fritole and galani. Venetians say that “El Zioba Grasso tute le boche lica” (“On Fat Thursday everybody licks their mouth”). More broadly translated: gorge, scarf, devour. Or my new favorite, “englut.” Makes me feel slightly sick without having eaten anything.

But even eating ten kilos of fritole and galani can’t match the excitement that was reserved for today back in the Olden Days.

The Venetian Republic made a fetish of commemorating important events in its life — every single victory, it would appear, and even some defeats. It all worked to keep Venetians united in their Venetian-ness and reinforce how very special, important, and amazing that was. And naturally any people who regard themselves and their city/nation/world in that light is bound to enjoy really laying it on when recalling certain events.

Take that little business of Ulrich of Treffen, Patriarch of Aquileia. No need to lose ourselves in the maze that was Venice’s relationship with ecclesiastical power; let’s just say that for centuries religious disagreements were more commonly (and certainly clearly) expressed in political and military terms. Or, conversely, political and military projects almost always involved some highly placed representatives of the Prince of Peace.

So the Patriarch of Aquileia, after a decisive battle in 1162, was taken prisoner and carried off to Venice along with his 12 canons. They offered an unusual ransom for their freedom: A bull and 12 fat pigs, which they promised would be provided every Fat Thursday for 200 years. And so it was.

Thus every Giovedi Grasso, to recall this glorious victory/humiliation, the public festivities involved the slaughter of the bull (the patriarch) and the fat pigs (the canons). Nice! I’m not referring to the aspect of blood, I’m referring to the aspect of insult. And everybody enjoyed it so much that it continued even after the 200 years were up.

In the early days of this entertainment, the bull was killed by the doge, and the pigs by the senators. (No comments, please.) Eventually Andrea Gritti (doge from 1523 to 1538), he of the palace which has become famous as a luxury hotel, decreed that the pigs be killed by members of the Butchers’ guild, while the bull would be dispatched by “the most robust member of the Ironworkers’ guild” with a single blow of a massive sword, a titanic decapitation in which the sword wasn’t allowed to touch the ground.

Even today, a common Venetian way of saying “Let’s get to the point” is “Tagliamo la testa al toro” — let’s cut the head off the bull. I hazard that “cut the bull” might be an Anglo-Saxon relative of the phrase and its meaning, but let’s move on.

So what did the doge and Senators do while the gore was flowing? They took clubs in hand and attacked 12 towers and a church made of marzipan, which they bludgeoned to smithereens.

Me, bludgeonless, I went to the Societa’ di Mutuo Soccorso dei Calafati e Carpentieri for their fritola-fest this afternoon. This mutual-aid society, formed by the erstwhile Caulkers and Carpenters of the Arsenal, makes a specialty of sometimes organizing little neighborhood parties, almost exclusively intended for the kids. Although — from what I’ve seen — each kid seems to arrive accompanied by a phalanx of voracious relatives, none of whom appears starved for fat or sugar, and with the phrase “Me First” invisibly tattooed on their foreheads.

When we walked out the front door at 4:45, the voluptuous perfume of just-fried fritole suffused our little street. Looking around, we discovered that they were being turned out in the taverna two steps away. A taverna here isn’t anything like in Greece; here the word connotes somebody’s (usually a guy, often old) haven that’s something like a cross between a garage and a rec room, usually with some kind of primitive kitchen set-up. Evidently one of the caulkers was frying up a fresh batch for the refreshment table.

It was a wonderful little interlude, out in via Garibaldi. The fritole were the best I’ve ever had, delectable little blobs, not too big, containing just the right amount of candied fruit and covered with a little more than the right amount of sugar. The galani were heavenly, shards of deep-fried dough thinner than onionskin, under clouds of powdered sugar. If there’d been more of a crowd I’d certainly have gone back for thirds, and fourths, and fifths. But I didn’t want the guys to start thinking, What — her again?

What I really want to know, though, is where the leftovers ended up. I want to go there and help dispose of them as nature intended.

You can have your first robin of spring — yesterday I detected the very first signs of Carnival .

The official Carnival celebrations this year will be running from February 6 to 16. Does ten days sound like not very many? Unless you’re a hotel owner, or a street cleaner in need of overtime, they’re more than enough, because each day will be filled with many, many tourists. In the sense that the Serengeti migration involves many, many wildebeest.

But in our little corner of the city, the signs are more appealing:

The first sprinkles of colored paper, thrown at random by small-to-smallish children. They haven’t even put on their costumes yet; for them, it’s enough to have a bag of confetti and an adult who is looking somewhere else.

IMG_7775 Carnevale comp — The dog is looking somewhere else because evidently confetti has no discernible odor.

And pastry!! Specifically, frittelle (free-TELL-eh) or, in Venetian, fritole (FREE-to-eh), and galani (gah-LAH-nee).

IMG_5693 Carnevale comp — Crunchy, full of fat, loaded with sugar -- what's not to like?

Our neighborhood pastry-shop (above) makes what I used to think were the best galani in the universe (if you will disregard their lavish use of powdered sugar, which is wrong). That was until I tried making them myself.

For the cost of a few fundamental ingredients and a couple of hours, you have a high probability, as a scientist would say, of producing something like this:

The day I made these, they were so good (the entire batch heaped six plates like this one) that we sat down and just started eating. That turned out to have been dinner. — The day I made these, they were so good (the entire batch heaped six plates like this one) that we sat down and just started eating. We didn't eat them all, but that turned out to have been dinner.

Fritole are another matter. As something to eat, they are less thrilling than galani (they trade the crunch factor for the dense-and-spongy factor), and as something to make, they’re even more work, though real Venetian housewives will deny it. I make no comment, I only observe that these women have had decades of a head start on me.

Not only does this bakery/pastry shop offer classic Venetian fritole in abundance, they drive home the point by writing "normal frittelle" on the price card. They assume you know what "normal" means.

Fritole involve yeast, and substantial quantities of hot oil, neither of which appeals to me — speaking as the maker, I mean, not the consumer.

Classic Venetian fritole contain bits of raisins and/or candied fruit, are covered in normal (again, not powdered) sugar, and are both crunchy and soft, in just the right proportions. I can’t tell you what those are — you’ll know them when you taste them.

Venetian fritole are becoming so rare that shops will put up a sign announcing they have them. Evidently the same impulse (culinary, commercial, cultural) which has turned the simple Christmas fugassa into a panettone that’s become a cross between a pinata and a myocardial infarction has also struck this classic Carnival treat.

Here you see the entire line-up of fritole, filled with cream, or zabaione (as they spell it), and now even chocolate.

Now you get fritole filled with thick cream or zabaglione, and covered with powdered sugar. These are, as the Good Book puts it, an abomination and a hissing. But they sell, and I’m not sure what the Good Book has to say about that.

As a bonus, I mention the unheralded but modestly good castagnole (kas-tan-YOLE-eh), which are essentially doughnut holes. They’re much easier to fix than fritole, if the recipes I found can be believed, and they are also approved (by me) for Carnival authenticity.

Here are the essential recipes, taken from my own culinary good book, my trusty “Cento Antiche Ricette di Cucina Veneziana” (One Hundred Ancient Recipes of Venetian Cooking):

GALANI

Ingredients: 1/2 kilo (1 pound) flour, 2 eggs, 30 grams (1 oz) butter, 10 grams (1/3 oz) “vanilla’d sugar” (zucchero vanigliato) or a few drops of vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, and a small glass of rum or other liqueur. Oil for frying (peanut is good; I use sunflower. They say you can also use lard. I’ll stand back.)

Mix all ingredients (your hands are the only effective option), divide the dough into portions about the size of a baseball (or bocce ball, if you wish).

Roll out on a floured surface with a rolling pin till the dough is about as thick as a sheet of paper. I’m serious about this. I know it’s a lot of work — the dough becomes more elastic and resistant to being rolled the more you keep at it — but if you fudge on this part you’ll never get the result you want. The first time I made these I stopped rolling when the dough was the thickness of carton, and they were a spectacular disaster. So just make up your mind to it.

Cut the PAPER-THIN sheet of dough into strips that are somewhere between a square and a rectangle, no longer than the span of your hand. (“One Hundred Recipes” says to tie each into a knot, but I’ve never seen them like this.) I say cut them into whatever shape you want as long as it’s not too big.

Lay them, a few strips at a time, in the extremely-hot-but-not-boiling oil. Watch them turn brown. (No need to turn them.) Remove quickly — they are born with an innate desire to burn and turn black — and put on paper towels.

Sprinkle with sugar. If you want to use powdered sugar, go ahead. You’re the one who’ll be eating them, and I won’t be there to check up on you.

Unfortunately, as fabulous as these are when they’re just made, they stay almost as good for days. So don’t feel you must consume them all at one go. Then again, it’s Carnival, so the rules have been disabled. Live it up.

FRITOLE

Ingredients: yeast, flour, raisins, pine nuts, candied lemon, one or two small glasses of some liqueur. Cooking oil (or lard).

I’m sorry I can’t be more precise; “One Hundred Recipes” sometimes falls back on the old-fashioned “you’ll know it when you see it” approach to quantities.

Dissolve the yeast in a little warm water with a little flour in a wooden bowl and place it near a source of warmth.

When it begins to rise, add the raisins, pine nuts, and liqueur. Mix “forcefully,” they say.

Add more flour, but make sure the mixture remains semi-liquid.

Cover the bowl with a cloth and put it back in the warm spot till the yeast has completely risen. (“You’ll know it when you see it.”)

Take soup-spoon-sized portions of the dough and drop in the hot oil. They say boiling oil — you’re on your own here.

Cook till done (ditto). Sprinkle with sugar.

CASTAGNOLE

Ingredients: 300 grams (10 oz) flour, 60 grams (2 oz) sugar, 50 grams (1 1/2 oz) butter, 2 eggs, 1 envelope of yeast (no quantity of contents given, hm…), two soup-spoons of rum or grappa, a pinch of salt, grated rind of one lemon or orange, Alchermes, powdered sugar, oil for frying.

Mix all the ingredients except the powdered sugar, oil, and Alchermes.

Let the dough “rest” for half an hour.

Make little balls (size of golf balls) of the dough and fry in the oil for about 15 minutes.

Take out and place on paper towels. While they’re still hot, pour a few drops of the Alchermes on each and sprinkle with the powdered sugar.

ALCHERMES

This is a bonus for all of you who want to go the distance, and to have something unusual (and probably delectable — I haven’t tried this. Yet.) in the house. It sounds good enough to rate being included in almost every recipe I can think of: pot roast, lasagne, creamed chipped beef on toast, Waldorf salad…

I am making a moderately educated guess that it’s pronounced Al-ker-MESS.

350 grams (12 oz) grain alcohol, 350 grams (12 oz) sugar, 500 grams (17 oz) water, 5 grams (1/10 oz) stick cinnamon, 1 gram (a pinch, I’d say) each of cloves,cardamom, and vanilla, 60 grams(2 oz) rosewater (the cooking, not the cosmetic, variety) and 4 grams (a few drops) carmine, otherwise known as Red Dye E 120.

My source gives no procedure at this point, so I’m going to suppose that you mix it all together, pour it into a container which closes tightly, put it somewhere dark, and don’t take it out for a while. Perhaps a long while.

Interesting historical note: You will already have assumed that this potion has Arabic roots because of the first syllable “al.” It’s a concoction once popular in Southern Italy and Sicily (where there was a notable Arab influence). It was customarily given to children to calm them whenever they were stricken with fear, profoundly shocked, moderately upset, slightly annoyed… Actually, I believe it was mainly administered in extreme situations, which in a region subject to earthquakes and eruptions aren’t completely theoretical.

If I were a southern Italian child, though, I’d make a point of evincing drastic distress every once in a while just to be able to taste this elixir. I imagine that life as a southern Italian child could be rife with possibilities to evince distress even without extreme natural events. Sunday lunch with the relatives comes to mind.

Carnival: Fat Thursday

Getting ready to party