When I first came to Italy, it was in September of 1984. That winter was one of the coldest and snowiest winters, which caused the olive trees to freeze and we lost thousands of trees which then sprouted back up from the trunks.

This year may be worse than that winter of 1985.

We were blocked in the house for 10 days ( we don’t have chains for our car) and lost our running water for 4 days. Not fun! But, we did have electricity and heat. The pantry was full and we survived.

We were hit lightly compared to those living up in Piemonte and those in Le Marche area and Abruzzo.
Counting our blessings.

The snow is just barely on the hills now, most of it melted and daytime temps are rising. It is still quite cold at night.

The month has been flying by and I missed going to the Carnevale in Viareggio to see the floats.
But the one thing I haven’t missed are the once a year sweets for carnevale.

This winter I am in the kitchen testing recipes for a friends new restaurant I am consulting for, so we bought both cenci and frittelle di riso. Here is my Russian grandmother’s recipe for her “cenci“ and my recipe for rice fritters. Both recipes make enough for family and friends, as this is party food!

Today is the beginning of the end of carnevale, called “Berlingaccio“. Fat Thursday!

A Berlingaccio, chi ‘un ha ciccia ammazzi il gatto

For Berlingaccio, who has no meat kills the cat

This odd saying, come from very poor times. In Lent, in Catholic countries, you are not allowed to eat meat, so this is the last chance to have meat for 40 days. In Italy, due to dire situations, war, famine etc., Various regions allowed the eating of animals which normally are not used for meat here. You can still find donkey and horse meat being eaten today. No cats! I do remember a story from one of the older butchers in the Mercato Centrale, telling me that during World War II, he was told to go and get a rabbit to cook for an American Officer who had been in town, freeing the Locals from the Nazis. There of course were NO RABBITS to be found, so he stole a cat and skinned it and then cleaned it by letting it sit in a river for awhile. The body structure is the same. Hard times.

On the same idea, when doing a market tour once with a small child along, she saw a rabbit in the meat stand, the little paws had a tiny bit of fur still on them. She said “Mommy, Mommy, I didn’t know Italians ate poodles!”

 

The last parades will be this weekend and then we have Martedi Grasso ( Mardi Gras) and Ash Wednesday  ( Mercoledi delle Cenere) when Lent starts. We did a road trip to a tiny village in Tuscany which is famous for a very simple dessert made only here for this festival. Lamporecchio is a town which is famous for it’s sweets. They make what looks like a potato chip, but is an anise flavored cookie. The dessert, called Berlingozzo,is also anise flavored. You rarely find the expensive vanilla as a flavoring here in desserts, more often lemon zest is used or sweet anise seeds.

I always think it is funny, Italians have a special cookie for Lent too, called Quaresimali. Quaresima means Lent.

Since we were out getting sweets, on our way home from Florence today we stopped at one of Florence’s oldest pastry shops, Gualtieri, famous for his Iris Cake. The recipe is only made there and has been kept a secret for over 100 years.

Enjoy your week of Carnevale where ever you are- and whip up some sweets to celebrate.