fat week 2022

Happy settimana grassa or fat week dear amici 🎉 This is the week that leads to Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday and the end of the Carnival celebrations in the Roman Catholic countries.
So, we have to take advantage of our culinary seasonal specialties that are basically a giant keto diet before detoxing for the 40 days of Lent 😓

Many of you have been asking about the situation these days and what we are forecasting. Let us remind you that even if Lucia is a Turin insider, she is not a secret agent yet. As a piscean, she does have a strong 6th sense but helas, her powers are limited (she didn't attend Hogwarts... just the Turin University and the OSU) and she doesn't own a crystal ball 😖 ... yet!

This is what we know up to February 22nd 2022.

Our covid19 infections are still quite high, our RT rate is 9.9% but hospitalizations are going down. The booster and children campaigns weren't as successful in Italy but by March 1st we are starting the 4th shot for the immunocompromised. As for the 4th shot for the regular population, we don't have an official press release by the government yet. However, our army general who is in charge of the logistics said today they think it will be in the Fall, maybe starting on late September.

the 2021 optimism

The new year started with the vaccination campaign for covid19 in Italy too, and as Befana came and took took away our Christmas decorations, in Turin we are keeping our Winter Lights on exceptionally till well after Mardi Gras. One of the Turin city council members explained that given the current circumstances, 'we all need to be cheered up'.

Mardi Gras season

In Turin though every season is a great season to visit and currently, we are in full Mardi Gras season aka il carnevale 😆

The Italian Holidays officially end on January 6th and that's exactly when in Piedmont we announce the beginning of the Carnival weeks. This is a traditional Roman Catholic celebration that officially ends on Mardi Gras or Martedì Grasso as the local say.

Coffee shop and pasticceria Tamborini, Via Garibaldi 31

Gianduia = Turin

Gianduia

Everybody knows Gianduia as the Turin's chocolate, but what does this name mean and who is Gianduia?

As we are approaching the Mardi Gras celebrations that closes the Carnival season in Italy, we felt the need to put all the puzzle pieces together: chocolates, Brachetto wine, Mardi Gras and Commedia dell'Arte 😎

Back in the Middle Ages, before actors where professionals, there were groups of people who impersonated characters and stereotypes and acted in the Italian piazzas. As there was no script, they usually improvised and took advantage of the regional dialects to add color to their interpretations.
This is very shortly how each Italian town got to be symbolized by a theatrical character who summed up in him or her the ways of his or her city.

Certainly, back in the 1200 - 1700, politically correctness wasn't an issue and little by little shows were organized where all these 'characters' acted together amplifying their own local stereotypes. Naturally these plays were funny, they were comedies and because they reflected the core of the Italian culture - at a time when Italy was still divided into many tiny kingdoms, republics, states - this is what came to be called Commedia dell'Arte - the true Italian essence of the art of the comedy.