Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent starts on Ash Wednesday. The name Shrove comes from the old middle English word ‘Shriven’ meaning to go to confession to say sorry for the wrong things you’ve done. Lent always starts on a Wednesday, so people went to confessions on the day before. This became known as Shriven Tuesday and then Shrove Tuesday.

In other countries, like Italy, Shrove Tuesday is known as ‘Martedì Grasso’, This means ‘Fat Tuesday’ in Italian and also comes from the idea of using up food before Lent.

Many countries round the world have ‘Martedì Grasso’ celebrations and carnivals. Some of the most famous are in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, New Orleans in the U.S.A., and Venice in Italy.
One of the most exquisite, unique and typical  Venice Carnival specialty is the home made ‘frittella’ (‘fritoleri’ in Venetian dialect) that you can find in every coffee and pastry shops of the city. These ‘frittelle’are one of the symbol of the Venetian Carnival.
Here you have the traditional recipe to make your own traditional sweets…

Ingredients for 4 people:

12 g of beer yeast
200 g of flour
40 g of raisans
40 g of pinoli nuts
40 g di candied fruits
ca. 350 g of seed oil
40 g of sugar
16 g of icing sugar
ca. 0,5  of grappa or rum

Preparation:

Dissolve yeast with a little warm water and sugar.  Add grappa and then flour adding water when needed.  Mix well until there are no air bubbles on the surface.  Cover and leave to rise in a warm place.  When the mix has doubled in size, add raisans, candied fruits and pinoli.  Heat oil and cook draining each doughnut on paper towels.  Arrange in a pyramid form and sprinkle with icing sugar.  Serve hot and enjoy your “frittelle”.

It’s Friday, I am thinking about what to do after work and the idea is… “bacari tour” in Venice!

The “giro per bacari” is a sure-fire way of experiencing the real Venice; the locals do that as perfect prelude to a meal and a funny way to meet with friends for a ful-fledged bacaro crawl “Bacari” and “Osterie”, simply furnished with wooden tables and benches are the local down-to-earth version of wine-bar. A bar with a false neglected look to remind the old Venetian shabby osteria, nowadays very researched and frequented meeting point for younger and adults.

In a “bacaro” you can drink a wine glass named from local “ombretta” and I suggest to order the local most famous drink “Spriz” (mixture of white wine, Campari and soda water) for aperitif form 6 p.m. to 21 p.m. and more. Together with spriz it’s impossible resist the tempting “cicheti”; tipical are the tasty barcounter snacks and the fried fish.

Absolutely try:

Sarde in saòr (Marinated sardines)
Baccalà mantecato (creamy dried cod)
Folpetti (baby octopus)

The most famous Bacari are concentrated in Rialto Bridge zone, all around the fruit and vegetable market. Here there is the famous “Cantina Do Mori“. Then “I Assasini” near “La Fenice” theatre and “Alla Vedova” in Canareggio sestriere.