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.
Here is a picture of the world yesterday, when frolic and carousal were the purpose of life:
Frittelle are so last year. We wandered into a pastry shop near the Rialto and discovered “mamelukes,” which have totally overthrown every other Carnival delicacy in my world. The mamelukes, as you know, were a military caste in medieval Egypt, and flourished from the 9th to the 19th centuries. Because of southern Italy’s unfortunate first-hand experiences with Saracens, “mammalucho” has long since become a term you might use to refer to somebody who is a little slow of wit. In this case, however, the term refers to these seductive little four-inch-long bits of sweetness. I’d have bought the whole tray if I’d known how much I was going to like them.Where frittelle are primarily fried dough, these are primarily I don’t know what. Bits of candied fruit, obviously, but there’s a minimum of matrix. I don’t usually promote places (though I love to promote things, such as this), but you should know that these are created at the Pasticceria Targa at number 1050 on the Ruga del Ravano. I doubt that they’ll be there before next year’s Carnival, but this will give you something to look forward to.
Lino was telling me about Carnival when he was a lad — or rather, not-Carnival.
“Who celebrated Carnival?” he asked in his characteristically rhetorical way. “It was right after the war and nobody had anything to eat. Everybody was just trying to survive.”
There’s another reason why there was no costumed jollification before Lent. “The government forbade you to wear a mask,” he said. Why? “For fear of reprisals. There was a lot of settling of scores from the war.” He means civilian scores, struggles between Fascists and Socialists on the home front.
“I had two uncles — I can’t remember their names right now,” he went on. “They were really vocal Socialists, and every time the Duce came to Venice, they were put in prison.” Ostensibly for their own protection, but more probably to keep whatever peace could be kept while company was visiting.
But prison didn’t have to be involved in these domestic conflicts. Mussolini’s squads of paramilitary “Blackshirts” (officially known as the Voluntary Militia for National Security) were notorious for taking political dissidents and forcing them to drink large quantities of castor oil. That experience would certainly leave a memory that would call for redress.
“And the Ponte brothers,” he went on. “You remember Bruno Ponte, he worked at the airport with me. My older brother, who was a Socialist, told me that when the brothers went home at night, they walked backwards to their front door, holding machine guns, so nobody would shoot them in the back.”
Carnival? You mean, let’s all dress up like Mozart and walk around the Piazza San Marco so people can take our picture? I’d say people weren’t really in the mood.
Now we have to say a word about today, Ash Wednesday. You might be aware that it is a day of abstinence and penitence, which used to involve a number of practices, most of which no longer survive.
The major custom (apart from going to Mass and having ashes sprinkled on your head) was to abstain from eating meat today. Only fish. Or maybe nothing, if anybody were to feel extremely penitent.
Therefore it has long been the custom for the butcher shops to be closed on Ash Wednesday. A cynical person might interpret that as “They might as well, if they’re not going to have any business.” But in any case, the tradition is still observed in our little lobe of Venice and, I’m guessing/hoping, elsewhere.
Butcher shops, though, are in a steep decline, so this valuable reminder of at least one day a year when they’re not standing there ready to provide T-bone steak is probably going to disappear eventually. After all, the supermarkets are all open and are merrily selling meat of every sort, including tripe.
“Wednesday closed. The ashes.” So either stock up now, or go buy fish. Or pizza or hummus or tofu or whatever people eat when they want to show how independent they are. “No meat today? Fine. I’ll just eat a couple of grilled scamorzas.”
I see I started with food and I’m ending with food. Maybe this abstinence thing is beginning to affect my brain. I mean, stomach.
