History | Venice: I am not making this up

Turkish not-so-delight

December 17, 2009 7 Comments

There are many things, I admit it, that deeply fascinate me about Turkey and one of them is its complicated linkage over the centuries with Venice. Polar opposites, one might think, until one begins to look closer.

As I was expatiating on this theme recently, I neglected to mention a few of the manifestations of this linkage lurking here. And one of them does not show Venice in her best light.

First: Two steps from Campo San Barnaba is a short, narrow street (with bridge) named the Calle (and Ponte) de le Turchette. If you were to guess, based on your elementary Italian, that this means “Street of the Little Turkish Girls,” you would be right.

Tradition maintains that in the era before the Casa dei Catechumeni was established to accommodate instruction in the Roman Catholic faith, there was a house here where Turkish women (“Turchette”), taken prisoner in assorted battles, were kept. Their time was spent mainly in being converted to Christianity. Or not. No word on the rate of conversion, or whether conversion was considered optional, or what the consequences were for not converting, at least not by the point where I stopped seeking information.

According to the estimable Giuseppe Tassini, writing in Curiosita’ Veneziane, a document in the Scuola di San Rocco states that the confraternity possesses a house in the parish of San Barnaba, “in Calle Longa, where the Turchette are housed.” That’s all I can tell you about this, though every time I pass this way I admit that images of exotic females, enclosed in another sort of harem, wander through my mind.

Second: An even more intriguing Middle-Eastern, let’s say, element is a mute patera (PAH-teh-ra) affixed to the side of a house behind the former hospital of the Incurabili. (These “incurables” were mostly syphilitics, if you’re wondering.)

This patera is very easy to miss, being so uncharacteristically high. Looking up is always a good idea when walking around in any city, especially here.

Patere were typically circular plaques carved in low relief on Istrian stone, often showing animals, which were placed on buildings generally from the 10th to the 12th century, though a few date till the 15th. These images were intended to ward off evil.

The one that fascinates me, though, has a very different vibe. It shows a cross, whose base is in the suggested form of a sword, standing upon a crescent.

The conclusions one might draw from this are fairly obvious, but that’s what annoys me — because so often the obvious turns out to be excitingly wrong. There is also the curious factor of the points of this crescent not being identical. So far, however, I haven’t been able to learn anything about it. But there it is.

A small digression on Turkishness: Ever since maize began to come to Italy from the Americas in the 1500’s, it has borne the name granoturco, or Turkish grain. There are various hypotheses for this, none of them definitive, but one of the more credible ones refers to the custom of lumping all sorts of foreign things together under the generic label “Turkish.” A relic of this habit applies here today regarding the Slavic women who come from Eastern Europe to work as caretakers of the elderly; even though they may come from Ukraine, Romania, or Moldova, I’ve heard at least a few Venetians refer to them as “Turche.”

Now we come to a longish street whose official name is “Barbarie de le Tole,” but which I think of as the “Street of the Kebab Joints.” And here the theme of Turkishness becomes less attractive.

There are some 20,000 students in Venice, a total of the enrollments in the two universities (Ca’ Foscari, the University of Venice, and the I.U.A.V., or University of Architecture). There is also a noticeable number of immigrants in the city, some from the Middle East or North Africa. And there is also a growing group of tourists who are getting by on a squeaking budget. These are all people who typically seek nourishing and/or good food at a very small price. So from pizza-by-the-slice (Italian, even if not very civilized), the choice has broadened out to include doner kebab, or what in the U.S. is often called by its Greek name, gyros. Foreign. Suddenly this changes things.

Whether or not you read Turkish (or German -- notice the subhead on this banner), the image itself translates as "good cheap food." — Whether or not you read Turkish, the image itself translates as "good cheap food."

Doner kebab was invented in Erzurum, eastern Turkey, and since the Seventies it has become a common and familiar fast food in most European countries. The making and selling of it are virtually always in the hands of Turkish individuals.

But all of a sudden Venice isn’t happy with these little places. I can’t say whether the kebabs’ precursors were available in the declining years of the Venetian Republic, but considering the spectacular variety of ethnicities and creeds which were to be found milling around the streets and markets and waterfronts of Venice back in the Old Days, it wouldn’t surprise me.

In the past decade or so, the subject of immigration (to Europe, not only to Venice) has become an increasingly tormented one politically, economically, and socially. Considering the multi-cultural foundation of this town, any anti-foreign sentiment is in some ways difficult to justify — not that one can’t understand it. This is a theme which I will dissect at another time.

But on December 4, the Gazzettino announced that the mayor has signed an ordinance forbidding the granting of any new licenses for kebab joints until 2012. The reasons given for this are many; they bob like ornaments hanging on a tree which has been hollowed by termites. The reasons as stated are:

The proliferation of these establishments and the consumption of their product on-site contribute to the “impoverishment” of the typical local places, as well as of the architectural and environmental quality of the city “due to the particular nature of their furnishing and equipment,” and
The “incompatibility” of the opening of new pizza/kebab joints with the “conservation of the artistic patrimony” and the “typicality” (if there is such a word) of the historic center, and
Opening such places in certain points in the city conduces to the “maximum vulnerability of the cultural and touristic profile” of the city (whatever that might mean), and
That anyway there are already enough such places to satisfy the demand, so no need for more.

And who proposed this extraordinary measure? Not any of the assorted Superintendents of the Artistic/Historic/Cultural/Archaeological Heritage; nor the director of the Academy of Fine Arts, nor the Guggenheim Collection, nor anyone from the battalions of professors of art, history, or even tourism, if you will, though any of those protagonists might be able to make a reasonable case. Not a voice from the syndics of the Venice Atheneaum. Nobody from any sphere or stratum of the cultural or artistic universe here. Not even a wail from Augusto Salvadori, the City Councilor for Tourism and Protection of Traditions and Decorum.

Despite its being couched in cultural and historic and artistic terms, the proposal was in fact made by Giuseppe Bortolussi, the plain old City Councilor for Productive Activity and Commerce. Therefore one can interpret these cultural concerns in economic terms, in favor of the small businessmen who are the competitors of the kebabists.

And the decree will cover 13 of the 24 most important touristic points of the city, including the Rialto, the area of San Marco (where there is already a flourishing McDonald’s), the train station, and the Accademia. They might just as well have said “everywhere,” considering that they have stated that there are already enough such places to satisfy the demand.

I thought capitalism posited that the consumers, not the city councilors, were the ones who get to decide which businesses live and which die. And if it’s possible to determine at what point there are “enough” kebab joints, it ought to be possible to determine at what point there are “enough” shops selling glass and Carnival masks, which a stroll around the city reveals as being somewhere around 249,327. Enabling infinite choice in souvenirs (good!) doesn’t seem to translate into infinite choice in foodstuffs (not good!).

This ordinance looks strangely like an effort to protect the restaurateurs, not the city, from impoverishment. To herd the wandering tourist seeking sustenance back into the trattorias and restaurants where the prices can sometimes go so high, at least compared to the value received, that they practically glow in the dark.

But I’d like to close this little cultural pilgrimage with the observation that hypocrisy evidently provides more fertile terrain than volcano slopes after an eruption if you want to grow a bumper crop of contradictions. All those affirmations of protecting the artistic and historic nature of the city? One hardly knows where to start to list the examples of how that concept has been violated.

I’ll provide just a few random snaps, chosen mainly by their convenience. Anyone who can explain why these alterations are permissible (I’ll spare you the details of the laws designed to “protect” the artistic and architectural nature of the city) is eagerly invited to enlighten me.

The "Danieli Excelsior" (center) was built as an addition to the Danieli Hotel, and wedged between the hotel, formerly a palazzo of the Dandolo family (DATE TK) and the New Prisons (DATE TK). — The "Danieli Excelsior" (center) was built in the 1950s as an addition to the Danieli Hotel, and wedged between the hotel, formerly a palazzo of the Dandolo family (late 1400s) and the New Prisons (1589-1616).

Somebody thought these balconies would be just the thing on this already unattractive modern residence, right next to the church of the Santo Spirito (1506).

Then there is this construction, housing the University of Venice's Department of European and Post-Colonial Studies, next to the TKTK. — Then there is this construction, housing the University of Venice's Department of European and Post-Colonial Studies, next to the Gothic palace now housing the Capitaneria di Porto (Port Authority).

Tramontin and Sons are one of the few squeri still building gondolas in Venice, and their workshop shows the traditional setup, from the wooden-chalet workshop to the ramp sliding down into the water. — Tramontin and Sons (1884) is one of the few squeri still building gondolas in Venice, and it shows the traditional setup, from the wooden-chalet workshop to the ramp sliding down into the water.

Right next door to Tramontin is the squero Daniele Bonaldo, which used to be its identical twin. I watched its inexplicable transformation from the traditional layout (he kept the wooden chalet workshop) into a major boatyard for motorboats. The cement platform covers the beaten-earth ramp, the hydraulic winch was unknown to his forebears, and of course the boats have nothing at all to do with gondolas.

This is the headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia (Venice Savings Bank) in Campo Manin. They say it's called Palazzo Nervi-Scattolin, but it doesn't resemble anything like what most people would call a Venetian palace. — This is the headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia (Venice Savings Bank) in Campo Manin. It's called Palazzo Nervi-Scattolin (1972), not for conjoined noble families but for the two architects, who stated openly that they didn't intend to create a "false antique." They succeeded.

History

Welcome home, Istanbul

December 3, 2009 5 Comments

Power-walking to the Piazza San Marco two days ago, what should I see but a new mega-piece of publicity covering the facade of the Biblioteca Marciana. And it’s not for Swatch or whoever else has recently benefited from what must be one of the more valuable pieces of billboard space in a major town.

Nope: It’s advertising Istanbul.

In an exceptionally elegant and simple design — with the added allure of a black-and-white photograph that makes the former capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires look like Rita Hayworth swathed in Blackglama mink — the world is being advised not only that Istanbul in 2010 is going to be a European Capital of Culture, but that it is “the most evocative city in the world.” The world. It says so right there.

Not a bad choice of words, considering that Venice seems to have a lock on the phrase “most beautiful city,” though the echo is a little unfortunate. And defining itself as “European” is pretty cool, considering that much of Europe is doing everything it can to make sure only it knows the combination to the lock into the EU. I suppose that the fact that part of Istanbul sits on the European side of the Bosporus could technically make this term admissible. In any case, something worked.

What struck me first as I went striding past was a bracing blast of irony. (I seem to be unusually susceptible to these, like some people are to drafts or mold.) Between 1463 and 1718 Venice was involved in eight major wars with the Ottoman Empire, and a war isn’t some little let’s-agree-to-disagree. Countless Venetians died in all sorts of ways, especially their commanders — Marcantonio Bragadin was flayed alive, Paolo Erizzo was sawn in half — enduring epic sieges, making phenomenal sacrifices, and even achieving one of the great naval victories of history, October 7, 1571, at Lepanto.

And now we have its capital, the Sublime Porte, the epicenter of enmity, looking all sorts of gorgeous and up in the Piazza San Marco, no less.

But on the other hand, what about the Fontego dei Turchi up on the Grand Canal? For centuries there was a thriving Turkish business community right here, which was allowed to have its own headquarters, just like the Germans, Persians, Arabs and many others. This type of establishment was known as a fontego (in Italian, fondaco, from the Arabian fonduk, meaning “inn”) and these establishments usually contained storerooms, strong-rooms for cash, meeting rooms, even bedrooms. (In the case of the Turks, their fontego also contained a hammam and a mosque.)

For a foreign merchant doing business in Venice, having a home base was extremely helpful. It was no less helpful to the Venetian government, considering that keeping ethnic groups corralled simplified surveillance. Simply put, scimitars may have flashed elsewhere, but here Turkish traders were just another part of the immense and complicated commercial reality that sustained Venice’s seemingly effortless glamor.

So that’s what struck me second: That in fact there isn’t any irony at work here at all. Venice had constructed so many trade connections, treaties, and other means of coexistence with the Muslim world — Egyptian Mamluks, Ottoman Turks, and so on — that it’s almost as if the wars occurred on another plane from the daily/yearly business of business. Your Venetian, whether patrician merchant or grimy artisan, was never in doubt as to the need to cultivate and maintain clients; whenever the Pope occasionally placed bans on trade with Them over There, Venice just kept going, trading as usual except by way of Cyprus and Crete.

In fact, Ottoman markets were crucial to Venice’s prosperity, being insatiable customers for Venetian luxury goods: heavy fabrics of silk (especially velvet) and wool, glass, books, and china. Venetians also exported work in gold, especially filigree, which was famous throughout Europe. As one historian puts it, “Without trade with the Muslim world, Venice would not have existed.”

Yes, this is actually how my brain works as I’m cantering around Venice trying to get assorted things done: buying fish, picking up dry cleaning, replacing the battery in my watch, collecting shoes from the man who calls himself a cobbler but who evidently isn’t able or interested in doing anything other than replacing heels. Try to get him to stitch a torn strap on a handbag and he goes all helpless on you, as if the machinery (one hand, one needle, one piece of heavy string) hadn’t been invented.

"Juno" by Paolo Veronese. — "Venice receives from Juno the doge's hat (corno)" by Paolo Veronese, in the Room of the Council of Ten, Doge's Palace. He makes it fairly clear that Venice and gold coins were born for each other.

So while I’m involved in the daily drudgery, dealing with all those little tasks that breed in dark corners at night and produce litters of new little tasks every day, I’m also meandering around mazes of history. I really like living in a city that gives you so many centuries and points of view all knotted up together.

And from what I keep noticing about Venice’s history, I think they really hated having to get involved in all those wars (and not just with the Ottomans, either). Put aside the possibility of death or dismemberment; wars with anybody are so bad for business, so distracting, so disrupting. How much more tempting is the clinking of coins, so warm, so musical. Except, of course, that the wars were intended to make more clinkage possible, otherwise there wouldn’t have been much point in bothering.

So here’s my conclusion: What better place than Venice to publicize Istanbul? That huge billboard practically amounts to the Return of the Native.

History, Venetian-ness

PS to the Madonna della Salute

December 1, 2009 No Comments

One of my favorite things to do on November 21, while I’m sitting in the choir behind the high altar after finally managing to consign my candle, is to gaze upon an extraordinary bas-relief on one wall, fairly high up. It is strange and dramatic and full of emotion and I have been unable to discover any information about it except that which is implied in a memorial plaque on the facing wall.

I apologize for the quality of the photograph but was unable to improve on it in the short, crowded time I was there. Here is the carving:

As you see, a triumphant angel hovers above the figure of a half-drowned man being pulled bodily from the water into a gondola. The faint outlines of the nearby palaces can be discerned. The hair on the victim's head is full of dripping water. — As you see, a triumphant angel hovers above the figure of a man being pulled bodily from the water into a gondola. The faint outlines of the nearby palaces can be discerned. The hair on the victim's head is dripping with water.

I always assumed that the man survived. One reason was that the angel seems so powerful and triumphant that it’s hard to interpret in any way except that of victory or success.

The second reason (and this is only slightly cheating) was because of the dedicatory plaque facing it, which to my primitive brain seemed to be an occasion for offering thanks. Then a friend of mine who teaches Latin translated it for me. It’s not happy.

It says: “That which Pietro Nicola F. Michiel, torn from life by a mournful destiny, had begun to do [or make] on the first of January 1824 , Anna Badoer, who survived her husband, carried to completion according to the terms of his will.”

This only raises so many questions I have to remain calm. Why was he making this? I seriously doubt he was carving his own tombstone. Or perhaps he was making the stone for someone else and he died of an entirely different cause, like appendicitis or cirrhosis or gout. (Can you die from gout?) The incident itself: Who is the man and how did he end up in the water? Diabetic crisis? Suicide? Who was it that pulled him out and — who knows — attempted to administer CPR? I can’t stand not knowing the answers.

What I can tell you, by merely looking at their surnames, is that they were both from old (extremely old) patrician Venetian families. The Michiel came to the primordial Venice in the year 822, and were recorded as one of the 12 “apostolic families” of the city, as was the Badoer family, whose original surname was Partecipazio. It’s easy to find barrels of information on their families, but hardly anything about them. It’s conceivable that he was old enough to have lived during the Venetian Republic and to have gone through its fall and reincarnation as an Austrian colony, which would be enough to make me throw myself into the canal, anyway.

What little more I have been able to learn about Anna Badoer is that an oratory dedicated to her is one of four in the church of San Giorgio in a small village called Maserada sul Piave, 12 km [7 miles] northeast of Treviso. Or it was there in 1838, date of the survey document that listed the church and its possessions. This oratory would presumably not be there because she had achieved any level of sainthood, but she probably paid for it to encourage people to pray for her soul.

And, as we see, we also know that she was faithful in fulfilling her husband’s wishes, whatever or whyever they were, and that’s something worth remembering any day.

Events, Food, History, Venetian-ness

La Madonna della Salute

November 23, 2009 5 Comments

If I were to tell you (which I am) that another important holiday has just been upon us, you would be correct in asking me — before the history, the rituals, the weather — what we’re eating. As I write the house is full of an extraordinary aroma, which is only to be found during one or two days each year. If I were to try to describe it, you’d never want to eat it.

The feast-day (specifically November 21) is in honor of La Madonna della Salute, or Our Lady of Health. The nutriment is called castradina (kah-stra-DEE-nah) and it’s not for the faint of palate. Unlike frittelle at Carnival and bigoli in salsa at Redentore, this is not a dish that one finds made at home very much anymore — an American woman in the butcher shop who overheard me ordering the main ingredient told me that she wouldn’t have the “courage” to try making it. (Courage? It’s not like you have to club it to death. Besides, with something this strange, how would anybody know if it had gone wrong?)

Cabbage belongs with cured meat -- it's just one of those mystic marriages.

Most important, it’s a dish that would be impossible to make at any other time of year because the principal component appears at the meatmongers only in mid-November and disappears even before the bridge is taken down at midnight and it will not be obtainable anywhere for another year “not even for ready money,” as the butler put it to Lady Bracknell. So even if you hate it, there is something appealing about its rarity, like one of those small creatures that are born, live, and die in the course of a single day. I happen to love it, but you know me.

Castradina is leg of mutton which has been dried, salted, smoked, and smeared with every spice which is black and odoriferous, and left to fester for only God knows how long. Hanging in the butcher shops they look like small prosciuttos which have just dragged themselves out of some basement apartment in Haight-Ashbury.

Under the Venetian Republic this product came from the flocks grazing the rocky heights of Dalmatia; today, much of it comes from the area of Sauris, in northeastern Italy next-door to Slovenia. Traditionally this meat — which obviously was treated in this intense way to withstand everything from ocean voyages to long-range bombardment — needs long, slow cooking. More than skill (or even courage), it requires time. And cabbage. I forgot to mention the verze sofogae, the suffocated cabbage.

I will give the recipe below, but I feel the need to move on to describe the feast-day itself. I find it very comforting because as there is Thanksgiving in November (with meat) in America, here there is thanksgiving in November (also with meat). So I don’t feel I’m missing any important element of the late autumn in all its dank, grey glory.

To understand why a church of the magnitude of Baldassare Longhena’s baroque basilica was built, we need to grasp, even slightly, the magnitude of the disaster it commemorates.

In 1630, Venice was hit with one of the worst plagues in her plague-ridden history. A mere 50 years earlier (1575-76) the city had managed to survive the scourge which inspired the church of the Redentore and its yearly festival of gratitude. Now, before the city had really recovered, the plague was back and it was even worse than before.

In that year plague had already been roaming around northern Italy, brought by German and and French soldiers fighting the Thirty Years’ War. They infected some of the Venetian troops, who took it to Mantova, where soon the disease had eliminated almost the entire city.

A hearse -- at the moment without any casket -- passes Lazzaretto Vecchio, one of several plague quarantine islands.

Venice was understandably cautious about contagion and was a pioneer in the business of quarantine, sequestering arriving ships, their crews and even their cargo for 40 days. The islands of Lazzaretto Vecchio and Lazzaretto Nuovo were dedicated to dealing with these cases, as well as some islands which have disappeared. For those unable to resist the romanticism of the idea of Venice sinking, I offer for pure, unadulterated melancholy the vision of an island (actually two: San Marco in Boccalama and San Lorenzo in Ammiana) which sank beneath the lagoon waves still containing the skeletons of the hundreds of poor bastards who were sent there to die. If Thomas Mann had known — or cared — about this, his famous novel with the irresistible title would not have had anything to do with a doomed infatuation at an expensive hotel but something much harsher in every way.

The situation in Venice was under control until an ambassador arrived from Carlo Gonzaga-Nevers, duke of Mantova. As everybody knew Mantova was already hugely infected with plague, the ambassador and his family were promptly quarantined on the island of San Clemente (now the site of the San Clemente Palace Hotel). All would have been well except that somebody thought it would be a good idea to send a carpenter over to see about some renovations that needed to be made to the ambassador’s quarters. Nothing wrong with that, but they let him go home. He brought the plague to San Vio, his neighborhood, and thence to the entire city.

By the time the epidemic was finally over 18 months later, 46,490 deaths had been recorded (some estimates go as high as 80,000) in a population of 140,000. The catastrophe was made even worse by the disproportionate number of pregnant women who died, and the fact that an epidemic of smallpox was also raging. So many people were dying each day that it was impossible to remove them all quickly; dead bodies simply lay about the streets, spreading contagion and panic.

This magnificent composition by Belgian sculptor Giusto Le Court (1627-1679) tells the story: (Left) the city of Venice, as a beautiful noblewoman, begs the Virgin Mary for deliverance. (Center) The Virgin accepts her plea. (Right) The plague, as a hideous hag, is driven out. — This magnificent composition by Flemish sculptor Giusto Le Court (1627-1679) tells the story: (Left) the city of Venice, as a beautiful noblewoman, begs the Virgin Mary for deliverance. (Center) The Virgin accepts her plea. (Right) The plague, as a hideous hag, is driven out.

Desperate, the Doge and Senate, the Patriarch of San Marco and the people of Venice gathered in San Marco to pray for deliverance; they performed a solemn procession throughout the entire city for 15 successive Saturdays, carrying the miraculous icon of the Madonna Nicopeia which the Byzantine Emperor used to carry into battle at the head of his army. And the Senate made a vow to build a church to the Virgin, swearing that the people would go there every year to give thanks till forever, if she would intercede to save the city.

In November, 1631 the plague was declared officially ended, and they kept their promise, though it took 50 years to fulfill. In November, 1687, Longhena’s masterpiece was complete.

So every November 21 since 1631, Venetians have honored the Senate’s vow to give thanks and have gone to offer their thanks to the Madonna della Salute, Our Lady of Health, and to ask for her protection or intercession. A friend of mine makes a point of telling his doctor that the two euros he spends on a votive candle that day is the best money he spends on his health all year. I think he’s joking but I’m not sure.

A temporary bridge is installed over the Grand Canal between S. Maria del Giglio and San Gregorio — roughly the path of the normal gondola traghetto. In the beginning it was set up on boats, big cargo-hauling peatas, which Lino remembers. Eventually, though, the demands of traffic outranked piety and now the bridge is a suitably high section of the one used in July for the feast of the Redentore.

Temporary stalls are set up around the area in front of the church’s steps where vendors sell candles from delicate to dangerous. You buy your candle, take it into the church, and wait amid the throng until you’ve inched close enough to the candle-offering stations to give your candle to the harried, wax-spattered boys who are lighting new candles and blowing out old ones at a pretty steady clip. Not many candles stay lit for very long, but try not to let that matter to you. It’s the thought that counts.

A fairly modest stall compared to some of the others, but still doing a steady business in votive candles.

Masses are being said at intervals in the various side chapels, and also at the high altar. We manage to shuffle past the altar to the choir behind, and sit in some of the heavy carved wooden stalls for a while to watch the people leaving through the sacristy. As Lino says, if you stay there long enough you’ll see everybody go by. This is one day nobody wants to miss.

Especially the ladies in their fur coats. For many and various reasons, Venice in winter is one place where mink still reigns supreme. One night on the vaporetto I counted eleven (I did not make that up). Shearling and wool are fine, and down parkas abound. But women of a certain age and ilk are going to be in fur. If it can’t be mink, it’s going to be as damn close to it as they can manage.

November 21 appears to be the unofficial opening day of the mink-coat season. I think it’s because — as mentioned above — everybody is going to be at the basilica, hence it’s the ideal moment and place to present yourself in all your furry splendor. I have seen women in mink coats on the big day when the sun was shining and the temperature in the mid-50s. Sweat? Sure. Take it off? Never! I have a friend who refers to this as the feast of Our Lady of the Fur Coat.

Before we leave the subject of this brief but glorious holy day, I need to stress that all is not candles and sacred vows. Yes, children are brought by their relatives, and they go through the drill. But it’s going to be quite a few years before the Salute connotes sanctity to them and not cotton candy. Because behind and beside the church, along the rio tera’ dei Catechumeni, a series of stalls are set up which you can smell long before you see them. It’s fat-and-sugar Elysium: deep-fried frisbees of dough (think flat funnel cakes) slathered with Nutella, candied peanuts, big fat doughnuts, long ropes of that weird pinkish soft stuff that looks like a thread of marshmallow DNA, and cotton candy sticking to everything. Noise! Lights! Sugar shock! And lots of balloons of cartoon characters, close to — and sometimes just past — bursting with helium. All day long the town is scattered with kids trudging home with floating Spongebob Squarepants or Nemo and Marlin or Dalmatian dogs tied to their wrists.

I have no idea what little Venetian kids in 1690 might have been given after they trudged out of church with their parents, but I would bet (I would hope) that it was something with absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever.

CASTRADINA Prepare two days in advance.

Part One: “Suffocated cabbage” or Verze sofogae (VER-zeh so-fo-GAH-eh)

Buy a medium-sized cabbage, preferably the kind that has crinkly purple leaves. Why? Because it looks better. Otherwise, any cabbage.

Slice it into really thin strips, not too long. Put it in an anti-stick pot along with a modest amount of extra-virgin olive oil, a few knobs of garlic, a sprig or two of rosemary, a little salt. Mix to coat well. Put it on low heat and cover. Stir occasionally. Eventually the cabbage will reduce itself to one-third of its previous volume, and have become soft and almost velvety. Don’t try to help it along by adding water. Be patient.

Remove the garlic. Set aside till tomorrow (in the refrigerator, or even leave it on the stovetop if the kitchen isn’t too warm.)

Part Two: The castradina itself.

Buy a piece of castradina — half a leg is plenty for three people. A pound, more or less.

Put it in a large stockpot filled with cold water. Bring to a boil. Simmer for half an hour. (Considering what’s been done to it, it’s not like you have to actually cook it.)

Put the pot on the windowsill, or somewhere else that is reliably cool and leave it to cool down completely. It will probably be overnight.

The next morning: Skim off the congealed grease which has formed a soft layer on top of the liquid.

Add the cabbage. Bring to a boil and simmer for an hour or so.

To serve: You can either serve the soup first, then a piece of the meat, or you can put them all together in the bowl. I haven’t heard of any myth, etiquette, or rule governing this. Just make sure it’s steaming hot. That’s part of its gestalt.

The reason why it has to be hot is because back in the centuries when castradina was a normal thing to eat, before it became a semi-exotic semi-relic, people ate it all winter long for the simple reason that it was one great way to warm up. You might like cocoa, or even mulled wine, but for a typical Venetian winter day/night you used to need to bring out the heavy culinary guns. Blastingly hot castradina was born for this.