When I was a little girl and would stay at my grandmothers, I would wake up to see her crunching down a biscotti and a cup of coffee. She would always offer one and I would turn her down because frankly, they did not appeal to me at all. They were always too crunchy and my grandmother did not make them with chocolate, but usually molasses or even worse anise (blah) with nuts (blah). Not fun kid fare.
When I grew up and actually saw them selling biscotti in coffee shops, I was shocked. Who would want to eat those dry licorice tasting cookies? And why were they calling them bis-cot-tee when we have always called them BEESH-GAWT Then I saw ones with chocolate chips and realised I could do that. Make the same cookies my grandmother makes, but add chocolate chips and not use anise. I am still amazed they sell these because they are like the easiest cookies in the history of the world.
Biscotti
1/2 cup shortening (or butter)
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 cups of flour
3 tsp baking powder
flavouring (I use 1 tsp vanilla, some grated orange peel and 1 cup chocolate chips)
Cream the butter, add the sugar and eggs 1 at a time. Add flour, baking powder and flavouring. Shape dough into like three round loaves and squish them down to make them slightly oblong. Bake on a greased cookie sheet for like an hour in 350 degree oven. Take out the loaves and slive them at an angle. Bake the slices for like another twenty minutes or until they are hard and crunchy.
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This is kind of off the main point, but re beesh-gawt: My father used to eat these frozen Italian foods all the time (Buitoni brand?) I remember he pronounced manicotti “mah-nuh-gort” or maybe “gawt” and I filled in the R because we were from Brooklyn and not everyone said Rs where I did. I always thought it was just one of those words that wasn’t pronounced like it’s spelled and didn’t realize it was based on Italian pronunciation.
I say manicotti as in English, even though I took Italian in high school and college, because I’m not putting on an accent for “ravioli” or “lasagna” so I figure why be inconsistent and feel silly at it. In Brooklyn they might make fun of you but here near DC I think people just say man-ih-cah-tee too.
Now see, I say mah-NEE-GAWT. I feel just the opposite, funny saying them the Americanised way because I have never said it that way or heard anyone say it until I ventured out. I also shkeev the way it sounds.
Oh you Southerners! Deciphering Calabrese dialect is one of the fun parts of transcribing Southern folk music. Sometimes the words are so changed that I cannot make heads or tails of it. One time I was thoroughly confused as to what the singer was singing, and it turned out that he was singing in Griko, the (nowadays rarely heard) Greek-Italian dialect of the Southeast. I have cousins who are Napolitani, and listening to their dialect is a real treat. They drop the terminal vowels as well.
As to biscotti with chocolate chips and without anise, che schifo! I am a purist when it comes to my biscotti. I like them with anise, almonds and made with grappa.
This cracked me up – I, too, used to wonder why anyone wanted hard dry cookies flavored with (ack!) anise. Now that my taste has grown up I like them, too. Mini-chips might work well, especially if the dough is a little soft and inclined to spread out on the pan.
No southerners here — I lived in Brooklyn till I was 21, and NoVa’s not too southern these days. Not certain, but I doubt Pansy’s ever qualified as a Southerner either.
I have never really liked the Italian cookies my uncle’s (by marriage) sister used to provide for gatherings at his home, or the ones people would get at the highly acclaimed Brooklyn bakeries, but everyone else raved as if they were better than Oreos or Fudge Stripes. I guess I have pretty lowbrow taste.
D’s m, I was not referring to USA’s South, but rather a pronunciation of Italian that is from Southern Italy, with the shift of some vowels to “u” and the clipping of terminal vowels. You find it south of Rome, but will never hear it in Tuscany or Umbria. We have our own way of rendering the language incomprehensible to outsiders (although it is difficult when your family’s village is only a short trip from the cradle of official Italian).
One thing that people must understand with biscotti is that they are a dipping cookie (although I like them dry as well). Espresso or grappa are good, but vin santo is really the way to go.
Yes, southerners. My father’s father’s family is from where you speak, he is Barese (from Bari) and the dialect there is Grecco-Italian. Cannot understand a thing. The food is awesome. Lots of food cured with hot peppers and olive oil. I have been told my favouritist dish of broccoli rabe, steamed in olive oil with garlic, “al-leech” (anchovies) and hot pepper is from that side of the family. Put that over spaghetti and you have a great meal for like $2. Although I saw it in a diner recently where they referred to it as “rappini” and charged like $10 for what we eat when the budget is tight.
The dialect I am referring to is Napolitani (NAHB-O-LEE-DON). When I started taking Italian is HS, I was so lost, especially since the classroom Italian was not only in Roman, but didn’t include the essential words that translate into things like “stubborn” “thick headed” and other things you yell at small children.
Biscotti for Christmas?
Simple Cookies-Simple Pleasures from Two Sleepy Mommies. A nice recipe, and comments from Erik and others, both on the cookie and on Italian dialects. Now, the predominant ethnicity in my family of mongrels is probably German – in my ancestry…
I took Italian in high school with a class full of girls who spoke Italian at home but also seemed quite lost, which was why they were taking the Italian as a Second Foreign Language accelerated beginners’ course. I am not sure where their families were from but traditionally it seems like the ancestors Brooklyn Italians tended to come from Naples or Sicily.
Pansy,
You might want to think about recording as much as you can of the traditions of the Griko. That region in Italy is still suffering from massive emmigration, and the language and customs could be extinct in our lifetimes, which would be sad. The food, music, folk art, all of that is fantastic from that part of the country. I have a colleague at Rootsworld who has been writing about the musicians who keep this culture’s music alive. He is a Greek fellow who is very interested in this stuff.
As to our basic food of survival being tarted up with big price tags, look at Polenta!
When I was in high school I avoided taking Italian, because it was taught by a Sicilian, and I did not trust him to speak Florentine properly. I already have peasant grammar and did not want to compound it with another region’s quirks. Of course I am sure that the fellow could speak proper Florentine, but it seemed like a real risk at the time. The principal was also Sicilian, so I did not think that he would give me approval to take Italian at the college because I did not want to study with a Sicilian.
Now, I wish that I had studied with the Italian teacher, specifically to have learned the Sicilian dialect, which fascinates me to no end. Oh well.
Oooh, I’ma ‘notha Brooklyn chick hee-ya and youse guys are bringin’ back mem’ries…didja ev-va get beesh-gawt from, oh, whey-a wuzzit? Aliotta’s or Alba’s or Ferrara’s?…freekin’ un-ba-LEE-va-bull.
I am curious, all you who know the Napolitani dialect, you seem to put “s” as “sh” in your phonetic spellings. I am familiar with this among Azoran Portuguese, but have no heard it in Napolitani field recordings, nor do my Napolitani cousins do this, to the best of my knowledge (although I will be paying careful attention at Christmas). I wonder if this is an East Coast thing and where it came from. Is it a full “sh” or is it somewhere between an “s” and an “sh?”
Yes, Neapolitan is very harsh, which is almost the antithesis of Italian itself. The ‘s’ become ‘sh’ and many vowels are dropped. I really cannot say if it “east coast” or not because I have only been around East Coast Italians.
Also, keep in mind, my family is not from Brooklyn, so they have many different expressions, my family is from Mt. Vernon (borders on the Bronx).
Here’s a colloquy for you, my family refers to tomato sauce as “gravy”. On “Sundays I make the gravy for the macaroni”. My father says maybe it has to do with the fact that the “sauce” they made had so much friggin meat in it, it was like a gravy? I dunno but all that meat was nasty.
The Italians I know all call the sauce gravy as well. As a matter of fact, dh and I were just speaking of this the other day as we watched the Food Network. They were doing a show on different Christmas traditions. They made a huge pot of what appeared to be bread with a filling of meatballs. What is this called? It looked Yumm, but fattening (as is anything and everything that I like).
KH — Aliotta’s! On Avenue N in Mill Basin? That’s kind of the Italian pastry place for my family, although isn’t it right next door to another Italian pastry place? I forget the name. Not sure if there are other Aliotta’s bakeries in Brooklyn.
My Italian relatives (by marriage) say sauce. My aunt’s husband is of Sicilian and Neapolitan extraction and my husband thinks his grandparents are of Northern Italian extraction. I have no Italian blood and grew up eating Ragu Old World Style meat sauce, in the jar that said, “That’s Italian!” Hehe. But I believe both my Italian-by-marriage aunt and Italian-by-birth mother-in-law make/made their own sauces.
I think the gravy thing is East Coast, rather than a Northern/Southern thing. We tend to call our meat sauce Ragu. Among Tuscans it always means meat ragu, if you were to serve a ragout de champignons, you would have some explaining to do. Tomato sauce without meat is sugo finto, or fake sauce (what you probably call marinara, which we only use in certain contexts). When we say gravy it refers only to Anglo food. Turkey and gravy. Pot roast and gravy. When we use it in reference to Italian we might say “red gravy place” and the reference is to an East Coast style calabrese or Sicilian place, but never to our own food.
Now, do you mean a specific type of pasta when you say macaroni, or do you use the term like we do to mean all types of dried pasta?
Um, do you mean East Coast USA this time or still Italy? I’m from East Coast USA but have very little idea of Italian geography.
I don’t think you were talking to me, but to me macaroni is a specific kind of pasta. When I was younger I thought I “didn’t like” macaroni. It’s funny how the shape can seem to make a difference.
D’s m,
I was refering to USA this time. I am fairly unfamiliar with the Adriatic coast south of Ravenna. I have always thought of the East Coast of the USA as predominantly Southern Italian and the West predominantly Tuscan, with the exception of our Sicilian fishermen.
Yep, that’s the same Aliotta’s (I grew up on Ave. T!) I can’t remember the name of the place next door, but doesn’t it specialize in bread? Palermo’s, maybe?
We call it gravy, too.
Extra credit: What’s a “shkol-a-bahst”?
Macaroni refers to all types of pasta. One of my non-Italian friends did not understand when I said “we are having macaroni again tonight” that I meant “pasta with sauce” in her terms, and not macaroni and cheese.
I asked some foodie Italian relatives of mine, and the consensus is that when we use the term “macaroni” it always means extruded dry pasta. None of us tend to use it with fresh pasta. I think that at one time it meant a specific type of tube pasta, but we have not observed that in as long as anyone could remember.
I picture macaroni as that stuff in Kraft mac and cheese and the mayonnaisey salads I refuse to eat, so I guess it is tube-shaped. But my Italian-by-marriage aunt might have served something of a more involved shape under that name. (I still don’t know what what they pronounced “antipast” actually is.)