About Abruzzo

Monthly Archive: April 2022

città sant'angelo 0

Province of Pescara / The Coast

Città Sant’Angelo

City of Angels, Mojito, and the Bones of Wild Beasts In Città Sant’Angelo one might hope to see angels. Or even saints. What I wasn’t expecting was an elephant’s tusk. Strange Beasts But here it is in full view in the little Civic Museum.  Though broken in two places, it lies protected in its special glass casket against a backdrop of an artist’s impression of its owner roaming the wilds. The kind young man who is pleased to welcome visitors to the museum tells me it was found in 1977 when the motorway was being built. But how did it get here?  I want to know. According to our...

fiadoni from Abruzzo 0

Cuisine

Fiadoni

Fiadoni, an Easter tradition My favourite friendly casciaro (cheesemaker) at the Saturday morning market offers me some fiadoni from Rapino. It is still some weeks till Easter but how can I resist?  The fiadoni are light and golden and I serve them slightly warmed as an antipasto the next day at lunch. Fiadoni are, simply put, golden pastry parcels filled with cheese and egg. But it seems that nothing to do with cooking is simple in Abruzzo.  How do you make fiadoni? I ask three women one day.  And I am given three different versions.  Had there been 30 women in the room, I would have 30 recipes. And...

Sulmona 2

Mountains / Province of L'Aquila

Sulmona

City of Romance and Confetti Most girls, when they get engaged, receive a ring. I got a bunch of confetti. But then on that fateful day I was in Sulmona, which is to confetti and weddings as Scotland is to whisky and ceilidhs. Confetti and coriandoli Let’s get one thing straight. By confetti, I don’t mean paper hearts and horseshoes or the harvest of the office shredding machine. Here, those tiny paper cut-outs are called coriandoli and are likely to get in your hair during Carnival. Italian style confetti are coated almonds. When I explain this to a friend, she looks aghast and says, nice, but don’t they hurt? ...