Carnevale | Gherkins & Tomatoes

Cuddrireddri (Photo credit: Alberto Ferrero)

Remembering Haiti Post-Carnival (Kanaval)

March 14, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

In March 2011, Japan suffered an 8.9 earthquake, a magnitude not often experienced. While the massive earthquake last year in Haiti was less on the Richter scale, it nonetheless did terrible damage that is still not wholly cleaned up. The gruesome scenes from Japan turned my mind back to Haiti. In Haiti, the tragic earthquake of January 12, 2010 destroyed the Haitian Kanaval as well as countless lives and buildings. Kanaval was canceled last year. Carnivale, Carnival, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Karneval, Masopust, […]

Categories: Carnevale, France, French Cooking, Haiti • Tags: Carnevale, Carnival, Earthquakes, Edwidge Danticat, France, French Cooking, Haiti, Jacmel, Mardi Gras, Masks, Shrove Tuesday

Idylls of Cuisine, #50

February 14, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Carnevale, Italy, Photography • Tags: Carnevale, Fat Tuesday, Food Photography, Mardi Gras, Masks, Valentine's Day, Venice

Carnevale Cometh: Ricotta and Fritters, Oh My!

February 13, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Fritters and Carnevale, lumped together like ham and eggs, mashed potatoes and gravy, risi e bisi, rice and beans. Ricotta fritters, to be exact. True, most people associate ricotta fritters more with St. Joseph’s Day, March 19 in Italy. But those fritters lean toward the filled variety, sweetened, creamy ricotta delivering a tantalizing surprise with every bite. No, these particular fritters include ricotta in the batter and puff up like popcorn, spitting and swirling in the oil like little balloons […]

Categories: Cheese, Desserts, Italian Cooking, Recipes • Tags: Carnevale, Carnival, Cooking, Food, Fritters, Mardi Gras, Recipe, Ricotta

Carnevale Cometh: Cenci By Any Other Name Would Taste as Sweet …

February 9, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Hereupon, a whole host of absurd figures surrounded him, pretending to sympathize in his mishap. Clowns and party-colored harlequins; orang-outangs; bear-headed, bull-headed, and dog-headed individuals; faces that would have been human, but for their enormous noses; one terrific creature, with a visage right in the centre of his breast; and all other imaginable kinds of monstrosity and exaggeration. These apparitions appeared to be investigating the case, after the fashion of a coroner’s jury, poking their pasteboard countenances close to the […]

Categories: Carnevale, Desserts, Italian Cooking, Recipes • Tags: Carnevale, Carnival, cenci, Cooking, Food, Italian Cooking, Mardi Gras

Carnivale Cometh: Lasagne di Carnevale

February 6, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

And now for the food of Carnival, as interpreted by cooks in what is now Italy. (See previous post on Carnival for more history.) Greasy, fatty, protein-rich, oozing with cheese or sugar, the dishes created for Martedi Grasso (Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday) served a higher purpose than merely feeding hungry stomachs: the severe Lenten proscriptions of the Roman Catholic Church meant that the ingredients — meat, cheese, butter, sugar, fat, eggs — couldn’t be touched until the Gloria rang out […]

Categories: Cheese, Italian Cooking • Tags: Carnevale, Carnival, Cooking, Food, Italian Cooking, Lasagna, Mardi Gras, Recipes

Carnevale Cometh

January 29, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Soon the streets of Venice will overflow with a flood — not of water, as usual — but of tourists and food. For soon the rituals of Carnevale, or Mardi Gras (also called Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday ) will once more surge into popular culture. The official date of Mardi Gras in 2009 falls on February 24. Mardi Gras, officially only one day on the liturgical calendar, is the term used by most people for a two-week period (or […]

Categories: Italian Cooking • Tags: Carnevale, Carnival, Cooking, Food, Italian Cooking, Nardi Gras, Recipes

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