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Ingredients Caragnoli**
Directions 1. Beat eggs.
Notes For years I assumed this recipe was to difficult to do so I didn't bother. Recently, I did do it in order to take a picture (See attached) and found that it is not all that complicated. You do need patience, and the right tools. But if you like fried sweets, then this is the recipe for you. Also, for years (all my life, actually) I assumed that this type of fritter was only done for the Christmas holidays in Italy as this was what my mother has been doing for the past 50 years. Every Christmas and New Year's they show up on our table. Now, my aunt who lives in Hamilton, Ontario, tells me that caragnoli and screppelli -- why even cauciuni! -- were also made for the Carnival festivities. My niece's mother-in-law, Mrs. Carmella Romano, who also grew in Molise says that some households also made them for The Feast Day of San Giuseppe, St. Joseph. However, only those households that could afford them, did so. Poorer households limited the fritters to the Christmas holidays. At my maternal grandmother's house such was the case. Nonne Seppe had very little money coming in, so she only made caragnoli for Christmas and cauciuni for The Feast Day of San Giuseppe (She never made both kinds of fritters at the same time!). However, at my paternal grandmother's house -- Nonna Assunta's -- various fritters were made for the holidays as her household was better off. Years ago as a young broad I wasn't all that interested in Italian culinary history (Or history, period!) so I didn't ask the questions that I would now like answered. And now it's too late.... Well, not exactly. Luckily, I still have quite a few relatives (including my mother) to draw on. Everyone I turn to tries really hard to give me the information I am looking for, but often the information is contradictory, so I am back to square one.... One thing I (or anybody else for that matter) can be sure of is that the poor had a harder time making ends meet (What else is new?) so they would have been rather selective in the kinds of foods they would have prepared for the various holidays. In the 1950s those Italians who immigrated to Canada found that food was relatively cheap here so they had the option of cooking their favorite sweets whenever and however they liked. For the first 25 years or so traditions were upheld, and those fritters associated with certain festivities were made when they showed up. But by the 1980s most Italians fried their pastry dough or baked their cookies whenever they felt like it.... So to make a long story short, it seems (as far as I can gather) that prior to World War II well-to-do households in Molise made the region's now famous caragnoli and cauciuni for Christmas, New Year's, Epiphany, The Feast Day of Saint Joseph and Carnival, but poorer households generally limited these fritters to one or two of the festivities mentioned.... One more thing it seems that in Italy (unlike in North America) Carnival is an important festive event. Prior to World War II most people celebrated it by making fritters, including those who lived in the Southern Italian countryside. Back then children went around "trick or treating" as part of the Carnival festivities (Almost in the same way as North American children do for Halloween). In any case, Italian children were given various foods as treats, but not fritters. What fritters were made were generally offered to one's immediate family. After World War II, those Italians who immigrated to North America, noticed that the locals did not make a fuss about Carnival (except perhaps in New Orleans) and so they too started to ignore the holiday. However, in the 1970s, after Venice's Carnival celebrations started to get world-wide media attention, many Italians in North America renewed their interest in it. A number of North Americans of Italian origin began going to Carnival parties held at halls or restaurants etc.... Still, few Italians started making Carnival fritters again, possibly because "it was too much trouble" or possibly because no one did them anymore (The tradition was lost for good!).... Yet one more thing -- according to my Zia Rosina, the caragnoli made in Casacalenda, Molise, prior to World War II, were not shaped like half bows. The fritters looked like spirals. According to my aunt the design cannot be duplicated as one would need special equipment to make them. Apparently, prior to World War II, cooks used old spools from looms that were used to weave linen to mark the pastry strips. As no one had looms in Canada, no one had spools either. Actually, not all households in Italy had looms either, so the spools were often borrowed from one household to the next. In any case, the spools were used to make decorative wedges in the uncooked dough, so that after the dough was rolled around in a circle, the end result was quite something to behold. My aunt promised to show me one day (See the recipe entitled, "Rosina's Caragnoli" to get an idea of what the design might have been like). Possibly that's why some cookbooks refer to similar-shaped fritters as "pin wheels." So much I don't know. Where are the food historians when you need them...? Photo: Mary Melfi. |