briciole

mangiare i confetti

1. To eat comfits
   The sugar coating is rather hard, so most people let it slowly dissolve in their mouth, then crunch the almond. If the heart of the confetto is made of chocolate, the dissolving process can proceed seamlessly from coating to coated delicacy. Some people prefer to crunch the confetto as soon as it lands in their mouth, an acceptable option that is harder on the teeth and makes a distinctive noise.
2. To celebrate a wedding
   (in the sense of going to someone's wedding party, not of performing the wedding ceremony) Giving confetti to wedding invitees is such a strong tradition that the act of eating them has become synonymous with participating to the wedding festivities. Asking someone who is engaged to be married quando mangiamo i confetti? (when are we going to eat comfit?) is equivalent to asking whether the wedding date has been set and what that date is.

[This post is dedicated to Jann.]

Hear me pronounce the expressions on the mangiare i confetti audio file [mp3] or go to the mangiare i confetti audio page for more listening options.

confetto

comfit

The word derived from the Latin confectum, meaning prepared. The traditional confetto is an almond coated in cooked fine sugar. The result is a white almond-shaped sweet that is given away in sets, hence use of the plural form, confetti, is more common.

Confetti are also made with chocolate instead of almonds. They are given away (in small bags or boxes) to family and friends for special occasions, like weddings, christenings, graduations, etc. Confetti for weddings are white, for a baby are gender-colored (pink or light blue) and for graduation are red. Silver and gold confetti celebrate 25th and 50th years of marriage, respectively [this site has some photos].

The English word 'confetti' corresponds to the Italian coriandoli. The connection is an interesting story: once upon a time, during Carnival, people threw confetti that had a coriander seed inside. Later on, small pieces of paper substituted the confetti and their Italian name refers to the original ingredient, coriandolo, while the English-speaking world remained faithful to the original name and called them confetti.

[This post is dedicated to Christine.]

Hear me pronounce the words on the confetto audio file [mp3] or go to the confetto audio page for more listening options.

maggiorana

marjoram

Origanum majorana (Majorana hortensis)
Mediterranean people have been using marjoram both as a culinary and a medicinal herb since ancient times. Besides being prized for its flavor, fragrance and curative properties, marjoram was considered a symbol of happiness.

Sweeter than thyme and milder than oregano, as seasoning marjoram can be used either fresh (recommended) or dried (if you have no choice). Its fragrance is sensitive to heat and therefore, if you plan to add it to a cooked dish, do so at the very end. Marjoram is perfect over pizza, with vegetables, meat, fish and beans. With such a versatility in its resume, hiring (that is, growing) marjoram in your herb garden is an easy choice.

One hypothesis regarding the origin of its name purports that women devoted 'major' attention to the cultivation of the plant, whose fragrance they loved above all else.

Marjoram is particularly popular in the Italian region of Liguria, where it is called erba persa, Persian herb, a reference to an origin from the Middle East that is not accurate, since marjoram's birth place appears to be Africa. Marjoram is an ingredient of salsa di noci (walnut sauce) used to season traditional Ligurian pasta . The entry for pesto in a 1876 text mentions parsley and marjoram as possible ingredients for the famous green sauce, instead of basil.

Marjoram in my herb garden

I picked a few leaves yesterday and added them to risotto with pattypan squash: the result was delicious, with the added bonus of a pleasant fragrance on my fingertips.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event sponsored by Kalyn's Kitchen, hosted this week by the founder herself. Here is the roundup of WHB #85.

Hear me pronounce the words on the maggiorana audio file [mp3] or go to the maggiorana audio page for more listening options.

bricia

fragment

A rarely used noun that derived from the vulgar Latin verb brisare, to break. The dialectal version brisa is used in parts of northern Italy and I love the way the word sounds.

Briciola (plural briciole) is a diminutive form of bricia and it is commonly used.

Briciole usually refers to breadcrumbs, but also to other crumbled items, and even to intangible things, like happiness (una briciola di felicità).

Crumbles of butter, flour, fine polenta, sugar and ground almonds make a cake typical of Mantua, called sbrisolona. It is different from a typical crumble, because there is no fruit layer underneath the crunchy crumbles.

[This post is dedicated to Jeff, who noticed I had not explained the name of my blog.]

Hear me pronounce the words on the bricia audio file [mp3] or go to the bricia audio page for more listening options.

gnocchi

First described by Boccaccio in his Decamerone, gnocchi are considered the first type of pasta ever made: a mixture of flour and water (the flour from wheat, millet, farro) shaped into round dumplings that were then cooked in boiling water.

The best-known version, made with potatoes, is fairly recent in historical terms, since potatoes did not become common in Italy until the 1800s. Gnocchi made with other main ingredients are common, like the small Sardinian malloreddus, made with semolina flour, knödel, made with stale bread (a day or two old), and gnocchi di ricotta¹.

The strange-sounding word gnocchi traces its origin to the Latin term nucleus, from which nocchio, meaning gnarl, derived. In the dialect of the region around Venice nocchio became gnoco and from there it was an easy transition to gnocco and its plural gnocchi.

Potato gnocchi take time to make, but the result is well worth the effort. My recipe (derived by my mother's) is described here.

Update: this post describes potato gnocchi made with purple potatoes.

¹ In this post I talk about a version of this dish.

Hear me pronounce the words on the gnocchi audio file [mp3] or go to the gnocchi audio page for more listening options.

polpettone

meatloaf

Polpettone comes from polpetta with the addition of the augmentative suffix -one.

I have never eaten either polpettone or meatloaf, because both are famous for being particularly demanding on our digestive system, a character I dislike in food. This defining trait of polpettone explains the metaphorical use of the word to describe something muddled and boring. Movies and books are at particular risk of being condemned as polpettoni.

Hear me pronounce the words on the polpettone audio file [mp3] or go to the polpettone audio page for more listening options.

polpetta

meatball

The word polpetta comes from polpa, meaning lean meat, with the addition of the diminutive suffix -etta.

Polpette can be made with meat or fish and are fried or stewed. My mother makes them with the boiled meat leftover from making broth. She fries them and the result is brown nuggets that are almost creamy inside and crispy outside. The next day she stews them in tomato sauce: what they lose in outer crispness, they gain in flavor with the aromatic tomato sauce.

I have never eaten spaghetti with meatballs and had never heard of them until I moved to California. Adding meatballs to pasta is a southern tradition and I grew up in central Italy. I have tasted, however, meatballs in the timpano, a pasta dish from Calabria, whose lengthy preparation is shown in the (highly recommended) movie "Big Night" (1996).

[This post is dedicated to Christine.]

Hear me pronounce the words on the polpetta audio file [mp3] or go to the polpetta audio page for more listening options.

fare la scarpetta

to clean one's plate with a piece of bread

My father always uses a small piece of bread to gather and scoop up the sauce remaining on his plate. As a child, I was taught to do the same, out of religious respect for the food, magnified in my parents by their experience of wartime food scarcity.

The expression usually refers to the tomato sauce left on a bowl after eating a portion of pasta, but as a child I had to fare la scarpetta no matter what dish I had eaten. The family tradition is now carried on by my husband, to my father's delight.

Scarpetta means little shoe, like the one lost by Cinderella, and the connection with the action described by the expression is unknown to me. What is known, however, is that fare la scarpetta is not acceptable during a formal dinner.

Hear me pronounce the expression on the fare la scarpetta audio file [mp3] or go to the fare la scarpetta audio page for more listening options.

fare una frittata

1. To make a frittata
   My recipe for frittata di zucchine was published this past June in the summer issue of Edible East Bay.
2. To make a mess
   Whenever my mother sent me to buy eggs as a child, she would always warn me not to make a frittata, i.e. break some or all of the eggs. At the store they did not use cartons (a great invention, if you ask me) and wrapped the eggs individually in pieces of newspaper, so that they looked like giant candies. The padding provided by the newspaper was often insufficient and I would arrive home with a cracked egg, which, in my mother's view of the world, was equivalent to having made a frittata.

Hear me pronounce the expression on the fare una frittata audio file [mp3] or go to the fare una frittata audio page for more listening options.

frittata

A dish made with beaten eggs to which usually other ingredients are added (vegetables, cheese, cooked pasta, prosciutto, or a combination thereof), before they are fried in a pan. Half-way through the cooking process, frittata should be flipped to allow even cooking. I recommend quick broiling instead, to avoid a possible catastrophic landing of the half-cooked frittata on the floor.