Shortly before Carnival, Roman bakeries start filling their windows with mountains of frappe and castagnole, as if no other sweets existed in the world. Le frappe are very similar to the pestiños from Cádiz and le castagnole, fried or baked, to Easter fritters. The only exotic detail worth noting is that they don’t just fill the fritters with cream and chocolate, but also with ricotta. Although I’m not personally crazy about ricotta in sweets, I must admit they are a very good invention. The ones in the photograph are the first we’ve bought this year, at Pasticceria Caretta, which I will tell you about in detail soon, as it deserves it. Leaving these sweets aside, and the children who, since Christmas, have been taking advantage of the Saturday afternoon family visit to McDonald’s or shopping malls to flutter about freely, dressed up as Marvel characters or little pink Barbie princesses, wearing too much makeup with passion, there isn’t much of a Carnival atmosphere around here.
It seems that over the last 5 years, Mr. Mayor Alemanno and his cronies have been trying to revive the traditions that had made the Roman Carnival an important event at a European level, from the 15th to the beginning of the 19th century. They organized everything and more: horse races along the Via Lata, the current Via del Corso; troupes of giants, little angels, and young people who followed them also in costume, but as historical or mythological characters; theater or puppet shows and popular banquets in the street… but frankly, and with all due respect, or not, to the mayor, and taking for granted that I don’t need to sing the thousand most obvious excellences of Rome to you, nor tell you that I believe everyone should visit it at least once in their life, etc… If what you want is a proper Carnival, you already know which other city in Italy you have to go to to spend your savings.
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