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Malta: Figolli (Marzipan-Filled Easter Pastries)

Since the Maltese language has been strongly influenced by Latin and Italian, it's possible that the word figolla (plural, figolli) is a worn-down version of the word figura, a form, shape, or image. Whatever the case, around Easter time in Malta, figolli are in every baker's window, and are also sold in shops and by various organizations to benefit charities.

Traditionally they were a post-Lenten treat intended mostly for children. The oldest shapes were of men and women (something like gingerbread men and women), and also fish and baskets -- possibly a reference to ancient symbols of fertility. But later other shapes started turning up -- ducks and bunnies, cars and butterflies. Whatever the shape, figolli are brightly decorated in icing and chocolate, and the biggest ones often incorporate a whole Easter egg (real or chocolate) wrapped in foil or paper.

Click on "read more" for the recipe.

Ireland: Dingle Pies (March 11, 2008)

The word fairings starts to turn up in English around the mid-1600's. It means something you buy at a fair -- sometimes as a present for someone else -- and specifically, food bought at a fair. In Ireland, these regional fairs -- which started out as periodic horse and cattle markets and expanded into general excuses for meeting and celebration -- were normally tied to the great holidays of the old Irish calendar, or to the major feasts of the Christian religious calendar that supplanted it.

One such holiday was Lammas Day, August 1st. ("Lammas" is a worn-down version of the Old English word hlaefmaesse, "loaf-feast": this festival, celebrating the grain harvest, is closely tied to the ancient Celtic summer / harvest festival of Lughnasagh.) Among many Irish Lammas fairs, one of the most famous was the one held in or near Dingle during the first week or ten days in August. People would flock to the Kingdom of Kerry from miles around to buy and sell their cows, horses and other goods, and to eat and drink and have a good time. The Dingle fair was particularly famous, and is still remembered in folksongs like the one about Red-Haired Mary. Other Lammas fairs in the area had such curious traditions as making a goat King of the Fair (this tradition is still carried on yearly at the Puck Fair in Killorglin, Co. Kerry, just south of the Dingle peninsula -- click here for the Google map), and they also still carry on the Dingle Fair's old tradition of serving fairings like the Dingle pie.

Once made with mutton, Dingle pies are now usually made with lamb. They're small individual pies that could easily be bought from a stall and carried around the fair while you had a look at the cattle or thought about where you might stop for your next pint.

Click on "read more" for the recipe.

Iceland: Sveskjuterta (Prune Torte)

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.02
 
      Title: Sveskjuterta (Prune Torte)
 Categories: Icelandic, Fruits, Dairy
      Yield: 8 servings
 
MMMMM---------------------------PASTRY--------------------------------
      2 c  Flour
  1 1/4 c  Butter or margarine
      1 tb Vinegar
    1/2 c  Water

MMMMM-----------------------CREAM FILLING----------------------------
      1 c  Milk
    1/2 ts Vanilla
      1    Egg yolk
      1 tb Sugar
      2 tb Flour
    1/2 lb Prunes
      1 c  Whipping cream (up to 2 c)
           Confectioner's sugar

The Tyrol: Two Grosti Recipes / Grosti da patac, Grosti sec

The cuisines of mountainous areas can sometimes seem shockingly high in fat and calories to those of us who work in well-heated environments and are too sedentary in our habits. But the mountain people of past decades and centuries didn't have such leisure. Living in some of the world's most hostile and least food-productive terrain, they had to find and consume enough calories to keep themselves warm and keep themselves working in the more or less inescapable cold.

Main dishes, side dishes and desserts that come from the European Alpine regions will therefore routinely wind up emphasizing the use of calorie-rich fats such as lard, butter and oil. The sweet and savory grosti of the Tyrolean area would be typical of this approach.

The sugar-dusted Grosti sec are very similar to other simple fried pastries in more northerly and southerly parts of Europe. In particular, sweet fried pastries like these, under many different names, have become traditional to eat during the Mardi Gras period. That would be when cooks observing the old "hard" Lenten fast would be hurrying to use up the fats and oils forbidden to an observant household during the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

The savory grosti da patac are somewhat more unusual: they include riced or mashed potatoes in their dough. In mountainous regions like Val Gardena / the Grödnertal in northern Italy, they're usually served with sauerkraut in the wintertime, or (in summer) with fresh, briefly boiled cabbage or other vegetables.

Click on "Read more" for the recipes.

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