Today on Food on Fridays we have look at the Venerdì Gnoccolar (“Gnocchi Friday”) custom in Verona.
The idea is that the Friday before Mardi Gras is the big Carnival celebration in Verona. The tradition — in addition to having a big parade – is to eat gnocchi (a type of pasta made from potatoes) on this day. Years ago in Verona, a lot of the restaurants there changed their menus and only served this type of pasta on Venerdì Gnoccolar. Chris and I didn’t make it to Verona this year for the festival, but we have gone multiple times in the past to partake of the festivities in person. However, this year, with the help of webcams that the city has in the area that the parade marches through, we did actually manage to catch a bit of the parade from a distance. Fun!
The following links will take you to old posts of mine from my original blog, where you can read the posts and see some photos I took in of the celebration in previous years (note that links within the posts the posts may lead to posts where photos are broken). The video links below will play a few of the videos I made about the Verona Carnival parade:
- Post from 2011 about Papa del Gnoco, the “leader’ of the celebrations
- Post from 2011 about the Verona Carnival celebration in general
- Videos from Verona’s 2009 Venerdì Gnoccolar parade:
- General Video montage of the parade (with my musical soundtrack added)
- Floats
- Marching bands
- Scenes and Sounds
My apologies for the posts — or more accurately the lack thereof — for much of this week. What can I say – it’s been one of those weeks. But at least with the posts above, you can get the a taste of the Veronese “Gnocchi Friday” festival that happens every year on the Friday before Mardi Gras – and happened, of course, again today.
Enjoy.
Papa del Gnocco does resemble Santa Claus quite a bit, but instead of carrying a sack of toys on his back, he appears to have a sack inside the front of his shirt. No doubt the sack is filled with warm gnocchi.
Watched all four 2009 clips. Looks like fun and as organized as things are in Italy. I expected some teutonic influence in that area, but didn’t see any. I enjoyed the spectacle.
Nice camera work.
@Will: I never thought about that, but a sack of warm gnocchi would be handy during that parade – it’s typically very very cold in Verona on the day of that parade, at least in our experience.
@Jack: Thanks! The parade is in Verona, further south than Bolzano and outside of the South Tyrol, so Italian rather than Tyrolean. 🙂 Chris did all the video camera work, and then I did all the video editing. Glad you enjoyed them!