01 Mar Le chiacchiere

Traditional recipes, just like festivities, have always been tied to the rhythms of nature. As winter cold was fading, flora and fauna started to give signs of awakening. Hens, not conditioned by industry, started to lay more eggs, not by chance, the main ingredient of the period. Easter and eggs duo is assumed and prosaic, not only for chocolate ones. More interesting could be the period right before Lent, with its abstinence from meat and eggs: the Carnival “settimana grassa” (“fat week”). The “carnem levare” – that became later Carnival – it’s literally a farewell to meat, or better a “see you soon”!. The so called “chiacchiere” (chatter) or struffoli, frappe, crostoli…

So many different regional names for the same dish, are the typical dessert in this period, where folly is not expressed by clothing or behaviour, but also in gluttony. Many names recall the stripy shape of the dish, but in the Lombardy tradition they were nuns chatter that, as being in seclusion, took vow of silence. Their same name is a lie (they’re called bugie – lies in Turin or Genova), right in the style of Carnival tradition of jokes and pranks. Flour, eggs, sugar, butter, white wine and even grappa* must be kneaded, cut in rag shape and deep fried. Chiacchiere became a tribute to gluttony, to exorcise the deprivation of the following forty days.

Stefano Bruno

* at least in this variation, any Italian area has its own peculiarities.

Ingredients

500 gr all-purpose flour

70 gr white sugar

3 eggs

50 gr butter

1 TBS grappa

20 ml milk

1 pinch of salt

6 gr baking soda for desserts

1 envelope of vanilla extract

qb peanuts frying oil

qb confectioners sugar

– Pour out the flour on the work surface and maake a hole in the center, then add the other ingredients in the center, except for the milk. Add the milk as you begin to knead the dough and knead it until it becomes smooth

– Cover in plastic wrap and let rest for around 20″

– Divide it into pieces and roll out the dough with a pasta cutter to cut in small diamonds

– Fry it in boiling oil for 30 seconds/1 minute. Once golden are ready, then  cool down and cover with powered sugar