Down to the fundamentals.Venetian frittelle (left) and galani. The staff of life for the next two weeks.
My response to Carnival, after all these years, has gradually diminished to what apparently is now the barest of minimums. (Minima, I know. Thank you to my internal pedant, who never sleeps.)
The basics are: Confetti — here known as coriandoli — masks, or some element of disguise, however small — galani and frittelle. And although the official opening day is tomorrow, about which more later, the premonitory signs have been accumulating. I enjoy those little signs almost more than any of the real events themselves. They give a pleasant sense of the overture being played before the curtain rises. Some blithe and whimsical overture, obviously, nothing Wagnerian, though now that I think of it, a doom-laden session of Wagner might be an amusing soundtrack to the surface frivolity. Which would be better? You decide.
I have written various postsover the yearsabout Carnival, as well as an article on the history of this phenomenon for Craftsmanship magazine. More posts can be found stretching back to the frayed edges of time, so I suggest that if you feel like it, just put “carnival” in the search field and search away.
Festoons of ribbons and harlequin-patterned things are strewn in shop windows, restaurants, grocery stores, hair salons…. I challenge you to open your eyes and look in any direction without seeing something carnivalesque.Now the supermarket is getting into the act. Did we need cookies shaped like carnival masks? Need? We don’t NEED any of these things. Bring them on!You prefer munching your mask filled with raspberry jam? The CONAD supermarket chain is ready to bring joy and plaque to your heart.One cannot be sure of finding genuine Venetian frittelle — the fads have overwhelmed the classic form, forcing pastry-makers to fill them with cream, zabaione, chocolate, and other ungodly ingredients. But Pasticceria Chiusso in Salizada dei Greci can be counted on to do the Right Thing. These scrumptious spheres remind me of those neat pyramids of cannonballs set up by cannons on battlefields. Not only does the delectable aroma of deep-fried dough greet you halfway down the street, but Maria, the owner’s wife, has helpfully labeled them as Venetian….…in Venetian: “Venessiane.” Perfect.Italy is seething with carnival characters, very ancient, and very specific to their region and history. Here are the main ones.
If you feel you must have a mask, you could buy these. Masks for your ears.
I suppose I’ll be checking back on the Carnival circuit before it’s over. Meanwhile, let the chips fall where they may.
Chips, specifically made to fall. Do not use them wisely, you’ll spoil the fun.
“Carnival hotels sold out in 600,000 for the festival.” I didn’t investigate this — 600,000 people will be staying in hotels? Unlikely. Perhaps a comma after “esauriti” could have clarified the statement. Still, I don’t doubt that that many people could be Venice-ing in some way and to some degree till Feb. 21. Can’t say we weren’t warned.
If you should happen to hear a loud rasping sound, it’s not a swarm of locusts warming up for mating season. It’s Venetian merchants rubbing their hands together. It’s Carnival time again!
The first weekend has just passed, but it seems to have gotten off to a curiously restrained start. The Gazzettino says there were 75,000 people, which is more than I’d want to spend a weekend with, but fewer than the 100,000 they report from pre-Covid days.
The novelty of an evening boat parade in the Grand Canal , a monster show on what appears to be a disguised dredge being pushed along by motor (the oars were fake — no wait, the oars were real, but the rowers were fake) did not enthuse the Venetians. It was a massive floating Las Vegas.
The boat parade the next morning, by Venetians who were rowing, was shorter than in past years, and there were fewer boats, as well. There were objections and protests about that, too, because truncating the trajectory meant that the mob scene that was so festive in the Cannaregio Canal was reduced to a simple mini-mob in the Erbaria at Rialto. Naturally all the merchants along the Cannaregio Canal have made their voices heard. Their palms are no longer rasping.
The uber-traditional “Flight of the Colombina” over Piazza San Marco was not held. Some explanation about the piazza being all torn up for the high-water-defenses work does not convince me, nor many others, either, but in any case no Colombina flew. Not Las Vegas-y enough? It used to be one of the major draws of the entire festival. Just more things I don’t understand.
No matter. We’ve got Carnival down here in via Garibaldi and environs, and that’s plenty entertaining for me. It’s wonderful how you can dress little kids up as anything and yet they still know exactly who they are. Some of them are pretending, but none of them is as good at it as some adults I know.
My thoughts are going no deeper. You can certainly upholster yourself as Giacomo Casanova, if that’s your thing. My own Carnival is kids, galani and frittelle.
The Christmas lights are keeping the festive spirit high in via Garibaldi.How can one little word contain so much carnival?You can have your newfangled frittelle filled with cream, zabaioni, and even pieces of apple. The classic Venetian variety is a heavy, dense, somewhat cake-like object. There’s nothing inside but raisins.Galani (known elsewhere around Italy as bugie or chiacchere, among other names) have reached their culinary peak at the Pasticceria Melito just below via Garibaldi. The secret is rolling the dough to a translucent sheet, then deep-frying it. Carnival means nothing without this apotheosis of fat and sugar.Bags of confetti (“coriandoli” in Italian) and other festive trifles are on sale in the supermarkets.Go in for a bottle of laundry detergent and some toothpaste and come out with your Carnival costume.The faithful ambulant amusement park has permission to stay from Christmas till Carnival, and if the weather cooperates it really adds to the madcap atmosphere.
Best of all are the shows — marionettes, magic tricks, juggling. The parents seem to love them as much as the kids do, though the dogs are a little harder to impress.Are we going to be stuck here much longer?
The puppet dog was a huge success. He never obeyed commands, and they even found a way to rig him up so he peed. The kids were ecstatic.
Night falls by 6:00 PM, and yes, the show must, and does, go on.The aristocrats manque’s can strut around the Piazza San Marco all they want. I like it better down here.
Today is Martedi’ Grasso (Mardi Gras) and Carnival is wrapping up. It wrapped up a few days ago in via Garibaldi, not with a bang, not with anything. On Giovedi’ Grasso, the stage, inflatable slide and trampolines were going full tilt, overrun by swarms of unchained children. The day after, nothing. Everything was just … gone.
There are still frittelle and galani on sale and the streets are still speckled with confetti, yet the revelers are nowhere to be seen. I think whoever’s still around has migrated to the Piazza San Marco, where the big closing events take place. I won’t be there. I’ll be sitting at home in the dark, like some addict, secretly eating the last of the galani.
Galani, the last batch. They are doomed and so am I.Frittelle veneziane are somewhat difficult to find; lately everybody seems to want them filled with pastry cream or zabaglione. I stick with the traditional solid balls of fried dough. I bought this one not because I’m so crazy about frittelle, but because I couldn’t resist the chance to break off all those little stick-out bits. I’m so easy to entertain.“Today there are mammaluchi.” Readers may remember that the Pasticceria Targa near the Rialto market is the only place I’ve found that offers a special Carnival sweet called “mammaluchi.” Not the knightly military caste drawn from the ranks of slave warriors (thanks, Wikipedia), but an equally dangerous pastry.The Mamluks had a special sword, but I think this could have be just as effective in your average skirmish. It would just take a little longer for your adversary to collapse. The filling is dough, but of a moisture and density that make you take them seriously. Two is actually too many, but I didn’t let that stop me.I receive absolutely no compensation for this mention, they don’t even know who I am. Just that wild-eyed foreigner who comes in every year asking if the mammaluchi are ready yet.I didn’t go on a hunt for costumes to photograph, mainly because so many of them are so trite. I don’t judge, I know the people concealed within are having a wonderful time. I just feel embarrassed taking pictures that everybody else is taking, especially of something so unimaginative. Here, a group of massive costumes was disembarking from the #1 vaporetto.I kind of liked these dudes, even if they had rented the garb. I was fascinated by the fact that all of them had 12 white dots. I have no idea how you play a game of dominos if all the tiles have the same number of dots, but at least they were being whimsical. I award points for whimsy.And speaking of whimsy, this was the scene in via Garibaldi on Fat Thursday. The munchkins from the local nursery school are dressed up as either little pigs (the girls) or wolves (boys). The masks were handmade of the ever-reliable construction paper.The pigs were especially adorable, not only because they were scarfing up frittelle and fruit juice but because they had to move their masks aside to make way for the food. The mask itself is a small masterpiece, held on by a circlet of pink construction paper.This was an exceptional minimalist costume. The mask was a small cardboard carton just sitting on his shoulders, and he must have had fun making a sword that wants to be a Mamluk bread knife.Seen at the Rialto market: A couple wearing chef’s toques, the father carrying their little girl on his back, disguised as a ….…lobster. That’s what I always say, never leave home without a clean handkerchief and a lobster.Yes, I know you want to stay out past dark, but it’s time to go home. Pack it up till next year.
Carnival has become one of my least favorite things about Venice, because each year its negative aspects increasingly outweigh the positive.
I am referring to the Mega-Commercial-Highly-Promoted Carnival whose vortex is the Piazza San Marco. But Carnival in its small, neighborhood version continues to charm me, mainly because it almost exclusively involves children (the smaller, the better) and their doting relatives. Random frolicking. Dressing up for no reason (by which I mean, not the reason of being photographed to, for, by, or with anyone, particularly tourists). Throwing fistfuls of confetti anywhere.
I don’t need to look at the calendar to know that Carnival has, as of today, officially begun. For the past few days the signs have been unmistakable.
Here are a few:
This pastry shop/cafe produces wonderful Carnival sweets (galani and frittelle, in case you’re wondering), even though they are overpriced. But I do like the way the words are composed, as if someone was more accustomed to composing anonymous ransom notes using cutout newspaper letters.There have been indiscriminate explosions of confetti, increasing in quantity and range, for a few days now. The perpetrators are invisible.Climbing the stairs to visit a friend two days ago, I discovered this mysterious harbinger of Carnival: The princess costume. Just add princess and throw confetti.
