/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>5181813
Well, I live in America currently and meet a lot of ItaloAmericans who claim ancestry from my area, but they've never heard of deep-frying meatballs. They think it's weird.
Then again, they also have never heard of the Befana, so I sometimes question just how Italian these people actually are.
Pic related: she's the one that brings gifts to children in Christmastide.

>>5044259
My family is from Northeastern Italy. We have three Christmases: 6th December (St Nicholas' Day), 24th/25th December and 5th/6th January (Little Christmas/Epiphany's Day).
The first one is for scaring women and children and giving candy.
The second is for the church.
The third is for gifting presents.

Each has their own colours associated with it:
Red, white and gold for St Nicolas' Day.
White and violet for Christmas.
Gold, violet, green and black/dark blue for the Epiphany.

And each has their own embodying personifications:
St Nicolas and a demon slave for St Nicolas' day.
The Christchild and Maria for Christmas.
A witch for the Epiphany.

Pic related: it's a typical Christmastide decoration in Italy.

>>4676890
Urp. Not carnival: Neapolitan Christmas (January 5th). It's been too long since I've left home ;_;

The story goes that the sweet bread was invented by a witch in Naples who flew it to Bethlehem on her chimney sweep (not a broom) the night of Jesus' birth but couldn't find him so now she travels around and gives sweets to good children, including that cake.
Pic related: it's a common Christmas decoration depicting the witch.

While I have never done so myself, my mom used to do bake one every year until I was about twelve years old.

Fun fact: I had no idea that Americans from Louisiana make this, too. We do it in Naples; ours is less a cake and more a very sweet yeast bread, though, but the concepts are similar.

I don't know how ours differs from yours other than cosmetically. I think the US version is a cake (IE made from batter) while ours is a bread/brioche (made from dough, albeit very sweet dough). Also, yours is dusted with multi-coloured powdered sugar and ours has bits of sugar-and-liqueur-preserved fruits, mostly cherries, of varying colours (green, red and yellow).

The 'baby' you put in there is either a coin or an almond for us.

Ours is rolled in pearls of sugar before being placed into the baking form and allowed to rise before being put into the hot oven. It makes the whole house smell like sweets and yeast, my favourite smells.

I think you guys do it for Easter, right? We do it for Neapolitan Christmas, January 5th-6th. Santa Claus/Father Christmas does not deliver the toys but, rather, a witch on a broomstick or chimney-cleaning stick does. This explains why she can come down the chimney and deliver the presents without leaving a trail of soot: she cleans up after herself with the broom.