To begin with, happy Halloween to those who celebrate it! In Italy the holiday was unknown just a few years ago, but it's catching on very fast, both as something for kids and as an occasion for adults to party. We don't have anything traditional for it, but we do have lots of traditional things for Ognissanti, All Saint's Day, which falls the day after Halloween. In particular, Bones of the Dead.

While we're on the subject of All Saint's Day, someone recently posted a request for a Sicilian cookie called Tatù on the forum. Pino Correnti, author of Il Libro d'Oro della Cucina e Dei Vini di Sicilia, says they're similar to Catalani, but with quite a bit of cocoa powder worked into the dough, and a chocolate glaze.

Catalani? They're for the Day of the Dead (Nov 2): "November 2," he writes, "is a great holiday for Sicilian children: the Dead take the place of the more Nordic Befana, giving out toys and candies. This custom of joining life and death is common throughout the Southern lands, and especially in Spain, which dominated Sicily for centuries: It comes as no surprise that these sweets are also called Catalani."

• 1 k (2 1/4 pounds, about 10 cups) Majorca flour
• 12 ounces (300 g) almonds, peeled and shredded
• 2 pounds sugar (1 1/8 for the icing)

Work the flour, almonds, and 7/8 pound of sugar into a dough, using just a little water to moisten it. Use the dough to roll out S-shaped snakes or form balls the size of a walnut. Put them on a greased cookie sheet and bake them until golden (he doesn't give a temperature; I'd guess 180 C, or 360 F). At this point make the veil: put the remaining water in a pot with water to barely cover, and simmer it until the syrup begins to thread (see the Joy of Cooking for candy temperatures if need be). The icing is ready: Dip the cookies in it, and return them to the cooling oven to dry.

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Sfinci

There was also a request for another Sicilian sweet, which led Sicula to suggest the following, "from Mary Taylor Simeti's Pomp & Sustenance, which is about the finest English-language Sicilian cookbook I've seen: "

May be you're looking for a recipe for Sfinci--a fried bread sweet:

• 1 cup (250 ml) of water
• 1/4 cup of lard
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups (150 g) of flour
• 5 eggs
• Vegetable oil for frying
• 1/2 cup of honey

Bring water, lard and salt to a boil. While saucepan is still on heat, sift the flour into the water, stirring all the while. Stir until well blended, remove from heat and cool.

When cooled, add one egg at a time and beat until mixture is perfectly smooth.

Drop one tablespoon of mixture to very hot oil (375 degrees F) and fry until each fritter is puffed and golden brown. Drain on paper towel.

Heat honey in another saucepan and dip the sfinci into the honey.

Serve immediately.

Sicula notes, "Mary Taylor Simeti [...also] mentions a type of sfinci made with mashed potatoes, sfinci di San Martino, a variant thereof made by the Benedictine Monks of Monreale, but gives no recipe. Anyway, Simeti's book is outstanding and a must for anyone interested in Sicilian food and its history.

Pino Correnti also discusses sfinci in Il Libro d'Oro della Cucina e Dei Vini di Sicilia, saying that they may be derived from the sweets the ancients made to greet the winter solstice, though he notes that Amari [whom I am not familiar with] says they're Arab.

He calls for

• 8 cups (800 g) Majorca grade flour
• 3 1/4 cups (1 cup = 250 ml) water
• 4 ounces (100 g) rendered lard
• 2 eggs
• An ounce (25 g) cream of tartar.
• More lard for frying.

Boil the water, melt the lard in it and then stir in the flour, pour the mixture out onto a marble work surface, incorporate the cream of tartar and the eggs, and work the mixture until you have a soft "ball". Heat lard for frying, and as soon as it's hot pluck of bits of dough from the ball, roll them between your palms to round them, and fry them. While they're turning golden and puffing up, hit them with a fork so that they develop hollow centers; drain them well, then cut them open and fill them with a ricotta or cream based filling, or use pastry cream and a syringe to do the job.

He also gives a sfinci recipe with potatoes for San Martino, which sounds more like Mary Taylor Simeti's:

• 2 1/4 pounds (1 k) potatoes, boiled, peeled, and put through a potato ricer
• 5 cups (500 g) durum wheat flour
• 2 eggs
• A packet of brewer's yeast (figure a cake of live yeast or so)
• 1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
• The grated zest of a lemon
• A pinch of powdered cinnamon
• Some honey
• Jasmine water
• Oil for frying

Make a batter with all the ingredients (except the honey and the jasmine water), using warm but not hot water, and let the better sit for a hour.

Heat oil for frying, and drop the batter into it a spoonful at a time, removing the sfinci when they have puffed up and become golden. Dip them in honey that's been diluted with jasmine water (I'm not sure where off Sicily you'll find this, alas), and they're done.

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Religious Freedom in Italy & Getting Along

Abandoning Sicily, but not religion, I was recently asked what sort of religious freedoms Italy offers. Complete and total; the Italian Constitution guarantees the separation of Church and State. However, the constitutional decree doesn't mean that the Church hasn't influenced the workings of the State; the most blatant example certainly occurred in the elections of 1948, when the polls put the Christian Democrats and the Communists neck-and-neck, and the priests repeatedly reminded their parishioners that, though Stalin couldn't see into a voting booth, God could. The Christian Democrats won, setting the stage for 45 years of mildly conservative national rule.

The tide of Near Eastern and North African immigration that has rumbled in over the past decade may be changing things, however. Cardinal Biffi of Bologna, one of Italy's more conservative clergymen, recently caused an uproar by suggesting that Italy should keep Muslims out, on the grounds that they cannot be assimilated into the predominately Catholic Italian culture, and will seek to take over if enough come in. He also suggested that Italy should favor the immigration of those from Catholic countries such as Poland or the Philippines over those from elsewhere. Howls of protest from some quarters, including some priests who are involved in missionary work, but Bossi's Lega Nord agrees whole heartedly with the Cardinal and has staged rallies to protest one Northern city's decision to allow the construction of a mosque. To further muddy the waters, Gianfranco Fini of Alleanza Nazionale (a conservative party in the same camp with the Lega Nord) came out against the Lega Nord's protests, saying the State must remain non-denominational. We shall see what happens, though it's obvious that this "us-against-them" mentality isn't good for anyone; we have an excellent example of where it leads across the Adriatic in the former Yugoslavia.

And it is nice to note that in the face of disaster people do bury the hatchet. This past week has been the worst in living memory for those living in the Northeast, in particular Val D'Aosta and northeastern Piemonte, where it rained more than 600 mm in 48 hours, and then tapered off, but only slightly, for another 48 hours. The entire region of Val D'Aosta was completely isolated, becoming a muddy inclined lake, and then the Po River filled up, surpassing the record levels reached in 1951 throughout its length and flooding huge tracts all the way to the Adriatic (some of Mario Soldati's footage of the 1951 flood was spliced into the second Don Camillo movie with Ceno Cervi and Fernandel, if you want to see that). Lago Maggiore also got into the act, flooding the towns on its banks, and the Ticino flooded Pavia. Everyone has pitched in to help, and about the only other positive thing one can say is that all considered the death toll was very low -- the authorities got the word out down river (Aosta was too sudden), and evacuations were timely. Now things are slowly returning to normal and the roads are again open, though it will be at leas a year before all the damage is repaired.

Pici all'Aglione

Winding down, I recently got a request for pici all'aglione, pici with a garlicky pasta sauce (aglio means garlic, and gives an idea of just how garlicky this is) from the Montepulciano/Montalcino area south of Siena. I've found a couple of recipes, one through the It.Hobby.Cucina newsgroup, and the other from Angie, who does the cooking site on an Italian network called Supereva. Pici are hand-made, somewhat irregular strands of flour-and-water pasta (as opposed to egg pasta) that are about an eighth of an inch thick. If you can't find them, use either bucatini or other thick-stranded pasta.

First recipe:

Pici, olive oil, garlic, bread crumbs, hot pepper, salt and parsley.

Bring pasta water to a boil and begin cooking the pici.

Heat quite a bit of olive oil in a high-sided skillet, add very finely minced garlic, and when it begins to brown sprinkle in bread crumbs; continue cooking, stirring constantly, until they're golden. At this point add finely shredded hot pepper and salt to taste. By now the pici should be al dente; drain them, transfer them to the skillet while the colander is still dripping a little, and move the skillet as you would if you were flipping an omelet to coat the strands with the sauce. Dust with lots of finely minced parsley and serve.

Second recipe

This is more of a definition:

Aglione is a soffritto (a sautéed mixture) in which several cloves of garlic are sautéed with shredded hot pepper, with the addition, at the end (but not always) of a little tomato sauce. It's a spicy sauce that works well with home-made pasta made with just flour and water but no eggs, and as such is peasant food.

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Finally, Tom recently sent me a collection of Calabrian proverbs. Liked this one: «U gutaru continuu, bucca la petra.» "Steadily dripping water will pierce a stone." I'll be leaving for Slowfood's Salone del Gusto (a major artisanal food show) tomorrow, and will be back Sunday night. A presto,
Kyle Phillips
Webweaver, About Italian Cuisine

PS -- Send a card from the Italian Cuisine Post Office, or browse the photos!

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