History | Venice: I am not making this up

Getting ready to party

January 21, 2010 2 Comments

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.

Motondoso: Suck it up

January 18, 2010 No Comments

The dynamics of waves aren’t so hard to understand — anybody who’s ever gone to the beach remembers the thump of the wave that has just arrived. (Am I the only person who’s ever noticed how much that sound resembles the slamming of the car doors as your family arrives for a visit?).

We don’t really notice what the thump does to the sand because an infinite series of them has already created the sand. It’s not a bad idea, though, to recall that the sand was once a hefty piece of mountain.

What isn’t so obvious, and maybe is even less obviously disturbing, is the hissing sound the wave makes as it departs. It is caused by a force called “risucchio,” (ree-SOOK-yo) which literally means “re-sucking,” though I suppose “undertow” is close enough for Anglophones. And it’s the force that tears asunder what was once clearly put together by God, man, or whatever’s in between.

This is the ferryboat which carries wheeled vehicles to and from the Lido. When it approaches the landing stage, the captain throws the engines into reverse to slow and stop the boat, then keeps the engines grinding in reverse in order to maintain tension on the lines. This is considered necessary for safety. The result is an impressive vortex of spinning water..

Cruise ships create the same effect when they are maneuvering out of their berth. Here, the TK Princess is on its way. In high season there can be as many as seven cruise ships in the Maritime Zone; although they don't create waves, the force of their engines here has gouged a crater TK feet deep. — Cruise ships create the same effect when they are maneuvering out of their berth. Here, the "Ruby Princess" is on its way out. In high season there can be as many as seven cruise ships in the Maritime Zone.

Even natural waves caused by the wind, aided and abetted by the retreating tide, will do some of this work of demolition. But then there are the big public boats — and I’m thinking specifically of waterbuses. They come in several versions here, but the highest number are the vaporettos.

The vaporetto is a specific type of boat, and the public-transport company, which goes by its acronym ACTV, operates 52 of them. Sometimes called “battello,” the vaporetto has a regularly scheduled cousin correctly called a “motoscafo,” though it gets called “vaporetto” too for convenience. It sits lower in the water and carries fewer people, though you might not believe it if you try to get on one at rush hour.

At this moment, the ACTV website informs us that the company operates “about 152” waterborne vehicles. (“About”? You mean you don’t know?) They break it down thus: 52 vaporettos, 55 motoscafos, 10 “single agent motoscafos,” which I can’t interpret for you just now, 16 bigger vaporettos that travel the lagoon (“vaporetti foranei”), 9 motonavi, and 8 ferryboats.

Naturally all of these vehicles cause waves, but what compounds the effect is the undertow they create when they stop at one of the 100 or so bus stops (city and lagoon) to drop and pick up passengers.

It’s pretty simple. Here is an illustration of what happens every time one of these craft comes and goes:

The vaporetto approaches the next stop. The captain may not have noticed whether is going with or against the tide; if he's going with it, he'll probably arrive faster than he meant to and have to hit the reverse really hard to break the momentum and get back into position to tie up. — The vaporetto approaches the next stop. The captain may not have noticed whether he is going with or against the tide; if he's going with it, he'll probably arrive faster than he meant to and have to hit the reverse really hard to break the momentum and get back into position to tie up.

He reverses the engines to stop the boat; the mariner throws a rope and ties the boat to the dock.

The captain revs the engine in order to bring the boat parallel to the dock. The water shows the effect of the earlier reverse and the momentary forward. — The captain revs the engine in order to bring the boat parallel to the dock. The water shows the effect of the earlier reverse and the subsequent forward.

To keep tension on the line while loading and unloading passengers, the captain keeps the engines at a very high rate of rpm's.

Everybody aboard; the mariner unties the boat and the captain begins to reverse again. This will give him the necessary momentum to get moving forward again. Sounds strange, but that's how it works. So: Back we go again. — Everybody's aboard; the mariner unties the boat and the captain begins to reverse again. This maneuver enables him to turn the boat slightly to starboard, which puts him the ideal position to throw the gears into "forward" and move on to the next stop. So: Back in reverse we go.

And wham! We're starting to move forward again.

And off we go. On to the next stop, where the same sequence of maneuvers will be repeated. If this looks even slightly disturbing out here in the open water, imagine it happening virtually constantly all along the Grand Canal. All day.

On September 15, 1881, the first vaporetto (“Regina Margherita”) began regular service in the Grand Canal. The imminent arrival of this creation caused tremendous distress and revolt among the gondoliers, who foresaw their doom. Their turmoil is the focus of a marvelous film, “Canal Grande” (1943), starring several then-well-known Venetian actors, such as Cesco Baseggio, plus a number of real gondoliers. Too bad it’s all in Italian.

The first vaporetto was soon followed by a fleet of eight, run by a French company, the “Compagnie des bateaux Omnibus.” Nothing against that noble nation, I merely note that Napoleon Bonaparte, who conquered and devastated Venice in 1797, was also French.

In 1890 the Societa’ Veneta Lagunare began service between Venice and assorted lagoon locations. And so it has gone.

Lino remembers when there were still very few vaporetto stops in the Grand Canal; they were at San Marco, Accademia, San Toma’, Rialto, the railway station, and probably Piazzale Roma, though he won’t swear to it. In what was still a flourishing local culture, the Venetians could find almost everything needed for daily life in their own little neighborhoods.

This is a bus stop, essentially a dock called a "pontile," to which the vaporetto is tied while exchanging passengers.

There are now 17 stops on the Grand Canal. They were not installed as something useful to the residents, as noted above, but for the transport of tourists. Shops have begun to close (I don’t lay this fact at the feet of the wave-and-sucking-causing public transport), so as the population has dropped, and the number of tourists has risen, the locals have had to range further afield to find forage, so to speak, and at the same time have had to use public transport which is usually overstuffed with tourists and their luggage. During Carnival, most Venetians do their utmost to stay the hell at home.

The city recognizes that there aren’t enough vaporettos most of the year; during the summer (and Carnival) extra routes and supplementary vehicles are laid on. But eventually some crisis point will be reached where the number of bodies requiring to be moved and the available space in which to do it will collide. To use a term which nobody in the navigation business wants to hear.

Zwingle’s Fifth Law states that “You can get used to anything.” You may quibble, but I can attest that you can definitely get used to this roiling and churning and sucking of many waters. This isn’t good, but neither can you travel all day in a constant state of rage and anguish.

You can give yourself an interlude of relief by going for a little stroll. Ignoring the roaring of motors and the shattering of waves, you can really relax in the city which is extolled for having no cars. I think people who say that must merely mean “no traffic.”

Before too much longer, the Grand Canal is going to resemble Runway 3 at O'Hare. At the moment, it's only like I-95 from Washington to Richmond.

Boatworld, History, Problems, Tourism, Venetian-ness, Water

Motondoso, Part 3: The How

January 15, 2010 No Comments

“Motondoso” has very clear, and essentially simple, causes and effects. Anything moving in water, even eels, will create some kind of wake. The wake is the visible, surface part of the turbulence made by whatever is moving — in the present case, the motor’s propellers. The waves spread out in two directions until they dissipate.

In the case of motorboats in Venice, this fact is exacerbated by:

If it floats, it has to have a motor. This appears to be the only rule that is universally obeyed. This is an increasingly common scene in the Grand Canal. (Photo: Venice Project Center) — If it floats, it has to have a motor. This appears to be the only rule that is universally obeyed. Here is an increasingly common scene in the Grand Canal. (Photo: Venice Project Center)

The number of boats: There are thousands of registered boats in the city of Venice. There are also many which are unregistered. This number spikes every year in the summer when trippers from the hinterland come into the lagoon to spend their weekends roaming around, often at high speed but always with many horsepower, in motorboats of every shape and tonnage. Teenage boys, particularly from the islands (by which we mean Sant’ Erasmo, Burano, Murano, are especially addicted to roaming at high speed at all hours with their girlfriends and boomboxes.

On a Sunday in July a few years ago, a squad of volunteers from the Venice Project Center spread out at observation posts across the lagoon, from Chioggia to Burano. Their mission was to count the number and type of boats that passed their station. Whether it was a million boats passing once or one boat a million times, it didn’t matter. They came home with quite a list: every kind of small-to-smallish boat with motors ranging from 15 to 150 hp, hulking great Zodiacs, large cabin cruisers, ferries, vaporettos, tourist mega-launches, hydrofoils from Croatia, taxis, and more. After 11 hours, from 8:30 AM to 7:30 PM, they analyzed their data. Result: A motorboat had passed somewhere, on the average, every one and a half seconds.

And if weekday traffic is heavy, weekend traffic is three times greater.

The types of boats: In the last 20 years, motor-powered traffic has doubled; at last count 30,000 trips are made in the city every day; 97 percent of these trips are in boats with motors. (There are currently 12 projects in the works for marinas which will add 8,000 more berths.) Of these 30,000 trips, a little over half are made by some sort of working boat.

More than 10,000 daily trips are by taxis or mega-launches, and more than 8,000 are by barges carrying some kind of goods (bricks, plumbing supplies, cream puffs, etc.). Studies have shown that if there is one category that over time causes the most damage, it’s not the taxi (I would have bet money on that). It’s barges. And they are everywhere. It’s all barges, all the time.

There have always been large heavy boats moving materials in Venice, but when they were propelled by oars, the backing-and-forthing needed to negotiate spaces and corners didn't involve creating heavy vortexes of water.

When a heavy boat runs into a wall, it can leave quite a calling card. Here is a popular place to tie up your barge while unloading cargo. Who did this? Everybody and nobody.

Toilet paper, detergent, and other household supplies come ashore with the flick of a few buttons. Life is good, unless you're an old and fragile city.

: I know they’re heavy, but all this boat to carry a few watermelons?

This is a peata, the mega-barge that built and maintained Venice well into the 20th century. It was usually rowed by two people, with one of them also at the tiller. And we require motors to do the same thing because we have to have speed. — This is a peata, the mega-barge that built and maintained Venice well into the 20th century. It was usually rowed by two people, with one of them also at the tiller. Now we require motors to do the same thing because we have to have speed.

These men knew and understood the lagoon, its tides and currents and winds, as no one ever will again, and they exploited them rather than fighting against them.

Traffic patterns: The problem isn’t merely the number and type of boats, but where they are. Obviously, the more boats you have, the more waves they will create, and where space is limited (most canals in Venice) these waves quickly accumulate into a roiling mass that dissipates with extreme difficulty. They are forced to go back and forth, hitting anything they come into contact with, until they finally wear themselves out and die.

There are canals where the waves don’t expire for hours: the Grand Canal (unfortunately), the Rio Novo, the Rio di Noale, the Canale di Tessera toward the airport, the Canale delle Fondamente Nuove, and above all, the Canale della Giudecca.

This map makes it clear why the Giudecca Canal is fated to carry virtually every boat that wants the shortest route from the Maritime Zone/Tronchetto to and from San Marco.

This broad, deep channel has become Venice’s Cape Horn. It is a stretch of water 1.5 miles long [2 km] and 1,581 feet [482 m] wide, and is the shortest and fastest way to get from the Maritime Zone (cruise ship passengers, tourist groups from buses at Tronchetto, barges delivering goods of every sort) to the Bacino of San Marco. One study revealed that the biggest waves in the Lagoon are here; an even more recent survey, conducted with a new telecamera system installed by the Capitaneria di Porto, provided some specific numbers: 1,000 boats an hour transit here, or 10,000 in an ordinary workday. In the summer, there are undoubtedly more, seeing that an “ordinary workday” includes masses of tourists.

One reason there are so many boats is due to the large number of barges, rendered necessary by an exotic system for distributing goods. If you are a restaurant and need paper products, they come on a barge. If you need tomato paste, it comes on another barge. If you need wine, it comes on another barge. In one especially busy internal canal, the amount of cargo and number of barges was analyzed, and it turns out that the stuff on 96 barges could have fit onto three. But never forget the fundamental philosophy: “Io devo lavorare” (I have to work).

The types of boats: Their weight and length. The shape of their hulls. Their motors (horsepower and propeller shape). All these factors influence the waves that they create.

A number of intelligent and effective changes have been proposed over time, most of which that would not be particularly complicated, but which would cost money. So far no one has shown that they consider these changes to be a worthwhile investment.

Example: The original motor taxis (c. 1930), apart from being smaller than those of today, positioned their motors in the center of the boat. When the hulls (and motors) became larger, everyone moved the motor to the stern, which immediately creates bigger waves. But subsequent improvement in motors and their fuels means that today it would be feasible to maintain the current size of the taxi while moving the motor to the center once again, thereby immediately minimizing its waves. Feasible, but no one is interested.

Boats this large made of metal may be necessary for certain kinds of heavy labor, but they are hazardous to the city's foundations not only because of the damage they can cause if they run into a building or fondamenta. The force of their motors during maneuvers, especially at low tide, really scour out the canal sediments, which are either carried away by the tide (potentially weakening foundations) or pushed up against the underwater walls of buildings which easily block sewer outflows. Blocked sewers cause accumulations of corrosive chemicals inside the building walls, which eventually also damage the structure. — Boats this large made of metal may be necessary for certain kinds of heavy labor, but they are hazardous to the city's foundations. Although they don't create noticeable waves in the smaller canals because they are going slowly, they contribute to the wave damage in several ways. One is by the chunks they take out of walls if they mistake a maneuver, thereby opening the pathway to waves from smaller boats. Another is the force of their motors during maneuvers, especially at low tide, which can suck the earth out from under the sidewalks. Or the force can push the canal sediment up against the underwater walls of buildings where they plug up sewer outflows. Blocked sewers cause accumulations of corrosive chemicals inside the building walls, which eventually also damage the structure.

Speed: This is utterly fundamental. Speed limits were introduced in 2002 to confront the already serious problem of the waves; the average legal range, depending on what canal you’re in, is between 5-7 km/h. But tourist mega-launches, barges, taxis — almost every motorized boat in Venice has the same need: To get where they’re going as quickly as possible.

This need has been imposed by the demands of mass tourism, which involves moving the maximum amount of cargo (people, laundry, bottled water, etc.) often many times during the day. Everyone makes up a timetable which suits them and then makes it work.

Studies by the Venice Project Center have revealed several speedy facts in crisp detail.

The height of the waves increases exponentially as speed increases. A small barge traveling at 5 km/h would produce a wake about 2 cm high. The same boat going at 10 km/h produces a wake of nearly 15 cm. (Multiply the speed by 2, multiply the wake by 7.)
Virtually all boats exceed the speed limit. The average speed on all boats in all canals was 12 km/h, which is more than 7 km/h over the maximum speed limit.
Therefore, reducing the speed of the boats would drastically decrease the size of their wakes.

Speed limits would have a positive effect (if they were obeyed) but only if certain laws of hydrodynamics were taken into account, such as the one governing the wake produced relative to the weight of the boat. Here the speed limits have been adjusted to permit the vaporettos (waterbuses), among the heaviest daily craft, to go — not slower, which would be correct — but as fast as the timetable requires.

You can change the laws on speed limits all you want — you’ll never change the laws of physics.

Oh yes: there will be waves.

Next: Part Four: The lagoon experience

Events, History, Venetian-ness

The Befana: Panevin tonight

January 5, 2010 3 Comments

The Befana, that bountiful old beldam, has more work to do than just to bring goodies to the kids and carry away the holidays.

On January 5 (the eve of the feast of the Epiphany — the eve being the day on which the profane elements of a festival are usually celebrated) several ancient rituals are observed in Italy going under various names. In the Veneto these customs are knotted together under the generic term panevin (pan-eh-VEEN). And the focal activity isn’t bread and wine — though there are naturally comestibles — but to brusar la vecia (broo-ZAR ya VEH-cha). Burn the old woman.

If you were to be in Venice on the night of January 5 and smelled smoke, you might want to check with someone before calling the firemen. Tonight, in fact, if the wind is from the east, I will be able to step outside and smell the smoke coming from bonfires along the lagoon’s farming coastline.

Technically speaking, this sort of agricultural festival would more appropriately be observed toward March, closer to the beginning of the annual cycle of cultivation, and not during what is still pretty much the dead of winter. In a few communities they do wait till the exact mid-point of Lent to “burn the old woman.” I suspect it’s because by then they’re desperate for some kind of festivity.

The central element of panevin is a bonfire composed of pieces of dead wood (from grapevines, olive trees, or anything else you have pruned or otherwise dismembered to encourage its growth), and atop this bonfire, tied to the stake which holds the mass of leftover wood together, is the effigy of an old woman, the Befana. Yes, she too is intended to go up in flames.

This photograph, not taken by me, shows the size of the bonfire in Novoli as well as the beginning of the blaze, which is set from within this mountain of wood. The burning figure is of St. Anthony Abbot.

Then again, in some towns, such as Novoli, the people burn their bonfire, a phenomenal ziggurat 36 meters [118 feet] high of dead vine branches, on January 17 in honor of St. Anthony Abbot, a major agricultural deity — sorry, I mean saint. I have my own memories of being there in 2003 researching “Italy Before the Romans” (National Geographic, January 2005). They let me climb to the top, the first woman — and an American, no less — ever to be permitted to do this. The next night the fire fizzled almost completely and I got out of town early, to avoid any recriminations of having brought bad luck. But back to the vecia.

Naturally any custom that strikes roots down to this level of antiquity contains several aspects, some contradictory, and not easy to confirm. But the general consensus is that bonfires played a central role in the ancient rituals of the Celts, who left other marks on the Veneto; the fire evoked, if not incited, the return of the sun from the solstice and the gradual lengthening and warming of the days. In the Christian religion, Epiphany was the day on the Julian calendar which coincided with December 25 on the Gregorian. (I know that December 25 is not the winter solstice, but I didn’t invent these customs.) And then the idea was planted/grafted/germinated spontaneously to hold the bonfire on Epiphany in order to light the way to Bethlehem for the Three Kings, who had traversed a bit too afar and gotten lost.

So we have to have fire, partly to represent/propitiate the sun, and partly because we’ve got loads of dead wood and other useless stuff that has to be incinerated anyway. Lino remembers when people would improvise their own bonfires right here in the city, in the neighborhood campos. As you can imagine, the firemen eventually put a stop to that.

Somebody or something has to serve as the sacrificial figure — deities require sacrifice — and an old human easily represents the old year, the old sins, the old crud and detritus and misfortune of the year just past. Some theories posit that the figure represents winter. Throw it all on there; all this stuff needs to be destroyed and fire in itself, besides being impressively effective in the destruction department, contains large amounts of symbolic meaning focused on purification.

Why does the figure have to be a woman? I’m still seeking the reason(s) for that one. One of the few I’ve found so far says that the female figure represents the Celtic priestess. There is also the point that Strenia (or Strenua), a Sabine goddess of strength and endurance adopted by the Romans, was venerated at the beginning of the year (one custom was the exchange of gifts; a Christmas gift is still called a strenna). Hence a woman. Let’s move on.

So we’ve got a fire, therefore naturally we’ve got smoke. And sparks. There will be a breeze. Now we come to the core of the ceremony, which is to study the direction the sparks are blown in order to predict how this year’s crops will fare.

The video above was made in Vittorio Veneto, a town about 80 km [50 miles] from Venice, toward the mountains. One hint are the men with the single black feather in their wool hats who are distributing the refreshments; these are members (or ex-members) of the Alpini, the mountain regiment of the Army. I’m sorry about the fruity TV music — it isn’t anything you would hear played at this event.

There are versions of the prognostication formula in scores of regional dialects, but the one I hear around Venice goes like this: “Se le falive (fa-EE-veh) va a marina/tol su saco e va a farina/se le falive va a montagne/tol su saco e va a castagne.” “If the sparks go toward the sea (east), take your sack and go to make flour (wheat); if the sparks go toward the mountains (west), take your sack and go gather chestnuts.”

Thus: Eastward-blowing sparks mean a good year is coming. If they head west, you’re going to be reduced to making your flour (bread, sustenance) from chestnuts, which is pretty much your last resort before starving. The fact that some not-bad dishes can be made with chestnut flour doesn’t change the fact that wheat is much, much better.

Let me note that the formula of divination in some areas, while being essentially the same, carries the opposite meaning: East is bad, west is good. So don’t blame me if your sparks don’t turn out to have told the truth.

Naturally all this burning and auguring is an excuse for a party (very few things here are not). We went one year to a small town on the mainland to celebrate the panevin, and after we had studied the sparks and coughed a while from the smoke, we went to the makeshift tables where vin brule’ (hot spiced wine) and pinza were being offered.

Wine needs no justification, and drinking it hot in sub-zero darkness is a great thing. If you haven’t got alcohol you haven’t got a party, and you can find easily find vin brule’ all winter.

But this is the only time of year you’ll get pinza. It is essentially the traditional winter-Veneto-panevin fruitcake, the only difference being that people actually eat pinza. This was the classic Christmas sweet before panettone horned in; it involves cornmeal, wheat flour, dried figs, anise seeds and bits of candied fruit. My trusty cookbook of old Venetian recipes includes raisins, sugar, pine nuts, and two eggs. Other recipes invoke walnuts, fennel seeds, and grappa. (Traditional offerings to Strenia were figs, dates and honey). However it’s made you won’t want a big wedge, it’s got a specific gravity rivaled only by mercury.

I hope you have a superb 2010, no matter where your sparks blew.