Today on Food on Fridays we are in Verona on a quest to find some of our favorite Santa Lucia Festival foods.

Although we also ate some sandwiches at the festival, the highlight was more on the junk-food side:

Frittelle di Santa Lucia – a flat fried dough doused in granulated sugar (and optionally topped with Nutella, although we didn’t try that).  The dough is slightly lemony, and when served hot and freshly made, it’s a great way to have a doughnut-like dessert. We’ve sampled frittelle quite a few times over the years, but for whatever reason,  I have never gotten a decent photo of them. I could have sworn I took one this time, but I have checked my 3 different cameras — I took photos on the trip with my cell phone, my point-and-shoot, and my dSLR —and I can’t find a photo of any frittelle on any of them. Ah well – we’ll just have to partake of this again so I can finally get that photo.

In the meantime, here’s a link to a photo of frittadelle I found on a website that also has a recipe and a video (in Italian) of a woman explaining how to make them.

Patatine (French Fries) – French fries are french fries everywhere you go. However, I’ve included a couple of photos in the gallery below to illustrate how they are served at an Italian food festival. Please note that just like in Germany, french fries are also not finger foods in Italy, although the “utensil” you get is different.  Here’s a link back to see the German french fry fork so you compare it to the Italian french fry stick you’ll see in the photos below.

Mandorle caramellate (Candied Almonds):  Stands selling sugar-coated candied almonds, peanuts and pistachios pop up at festivals in Germany, too, but I think the first time I had them at a festival was at the Santa Lucia festival years ago. Like the frittelle, the Mandorle caramellate are best if you can find a stand that has a some ready to serve warm.

The same stalls that sell the candied nuts also sell different styles of candy bars with nuts, including what looks like a brittle bar (e.g.peanut brittle, almond brittle, etc).  One morning as we roamed around the Santa Lucia market we joined a throng of people crowding around a stand where a man was taking a shapeless lump of fresh-from-the-kettle peanut brittle and shaping it into the bars.  His motions were almost those of a dancer, as he confidently shaped, threw, and re-shaped the mass of candied nuts into a long log before they cooled off. A co-worked stood next to him to act as a carnival barker, calling out every few seconds, “get your fresh pistachio brittle here!” As a marketing ploy, this little bit of brittle theater worked well to attract a crowd to stop at their stand.

About 9 hours later, as we walked around the market in the evening, we passed by the same stand – and saw the same guy was still making brittle, although this time with peanuts. His motions were slower than in the morning — he really been at this for the last 8 hours? If so, he must have been exhausted! The carnival barker co-worker was different, but he must have been doing it for a while, too, as he was only halfheartedly calling out “get your fresh peanut brittle here” every minute or so.  In the morning I hadn’t taken any photos, but this time we got a better position in the crowd, so I tried using some of those “sweep panoramas” to record the moment, with some interesting (and sometimes “ghostly”) effects.

So in the gallery below, enjoy a small virtual taste of the food at the festival.