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Seasonal treats for the sweet-toothed Spring Sweet Spring
[Rocco Barisci]
On 19th March, Italy celebrates St. Joseph's as well as Father's Day, because of course Joseph was the father of Jesus and therefore a model of fatherhood. The traditional sweet for this occasion are frittelle di riso (sweet rice balls), a kind of scrumptious fritters with raisins and orange peel. Sagre delle frittelle are popular all over Tuscany throughout March, the most famous being held in the picturesque walled burgh of Montefioralle above Greve in Chianti (over the weekend of March 20th-21st); an ancient St. Joseph's fair is held in piazza Santa Croce in Florence, and another one in via Giovanni Duprè near piazza del Campo in the heart of Siena.Quaresimali (Lenten biscuits) are nice brown cookies which you will only find in local bakeries and confectioners' shops during Lent (i.e. between Carnival to Easter). They are a great favorite with children for their chocolate flavor and alphabet shapes.
After the fasting of Lent, in the past the kitchens of country houses were full of unused eggs, so eggs - with the bonus of an intrinsic symbolism of birth - naturally become the basis of every Easter sweet. As in most tradditional festivities, every region (and sometimes even every town) boasts its particular Easter recipes.
Pandiramerini (rosemary buns) are raisin-stuffed soft cakes, not too sweet. They are an old Florentine recipe, originaly meant to be blessed and eaten in the Holy Week. They were sold by street vendors outside the churches, where people went to visit the Easter Sepulchre and accomplish the Giro delle Sette Chiese (a pilgrimage which involves touring seven churches). Nowadays you can buy them loose from most bakeries, in most cases throughout the year. Their ingredients are bread dough, sugar, raisins, dried and ground rosemary and olive oil. Because of their "holy" origin, you should be careful not to waste even the tiniest crumb!
In southern Tuscany, a still strong Easter tradition is a big breakfast with the typical schiaccia di Pasqua, sometimes referred to as schiaccia (or ciaccia) dolce or schiaccia con la ricotta. This is a very soft bread, variously sweetened rather than salted depending on the area and family habit. Pasimata is another simple sweet Easter bread, this time from Lucca area. Rectangular in shape, it is flavorored with aniseed and brought to church on Easter morning to be blessed together with the easter eggs.
On a national level, the two Easter sweets that are common to the whole of Italy are colomba and chocolate eggs. The former - a sweet, eggy cake (think of panettone plus candied orange peel, minus the raisins, and topped with sugared and sliced almonds) - is called colomba because it is dove-shaped. As a symbol of peace, the dove is an appropriate finish to an Easter dinner. In recent years industrial manufacturers have started marketing several fancy varieties of colomba (chocolate-covered, creamfilled etc.), but you should try the real thing first, better still if fresh from the oven of a good bakery.
Although Italians do not decorate hard–boiled eggs nor have chocolate bunnies or pastel marshmallow chicks, the biggest Easter displays in bars, pastry shops, supermarkets and especially chocolatiers are brightly wrapped uova di Pasqua (chocolate Easter eggs). They come in sizes that range from a few grams to several kilos and in several varities of milk, plain, bitter and white chocolate to meet all tastes. All except the tiniest eggs contain a surprise, and the very best eggs are handmade by master chocolatiers, who also offer the service of inserting a surprise supplied by the purchaser. Sets of keys for a new car, engagement rings and gold watches are some of the high–end gifts that have sometimes been tucked into Italian chocolate eggs!
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