Another aspect of Christmas which has never failed is that of huge meals. The streets become roads of abundance where the shopkeepers display in duplicate both foodstuffs and common commodities. What refined early fruit and vegetables, typical sweets and cakes! Everything becomes a joy to the eye and a temptation to the palate. No-one minds expense. The rich man and the simple worker vie to emulate one another in this triumph of consumism.
No home is without, as is traditional in these parts, a large eel to be eaten on Christmas eve, cooked in a variety nor will the typical sweets be missing, rock-cakes, almond-honey cakes, marzipan, doughnuts and struffles. Why such an explosion of bounty? It’s tradition. Our population, that of the south that is, has always lived for the major part in conditions of extreme economic precarity. Because of this the table has also suffered, always being poor and simple.

Only in rare circumstance has it been enriched by nobler foods and one of these rare circumstances is, in fact, Christmas. Christmas was an occasion to end in abudance a lean year and the sign of good omen for a more prosperous coming year.
Today things are a bit different nearly everyone can “celebrate Christmas” more frequently but the tradition of Christmas cooking with its ritual course, its particular dishes resists, to the joy of young and old alike. We’ve mentioned several sweets with rather strange names. We should like to tell you the ingredients since they are all very tasty and, above all, typical of this area. The strufles (struffoli) are the oldest.
They are made from eggs, flour, butter and aniseed. They are rolled into strips and then cut to the shape and size of chick-peas fried and covered with honey, confetti and candied fruit.

The Greeks prepared them in a similar way, calling them “Lukumates” or delicacies. The name “struffolo” seems to derive from Struggolos rounddish, with in fact indicates the shape in which they were prepared. Evidently the Greek colonists who settled in Naples introduced this weet which was part of their cuisine. The almond-honey cake (sosamiello) is made from a paste of flour, almonds and honey. It is “S” shaped and baked in the oven. The rock-cake (roccocò) is a flat ring, made from a past of wheat-flour, finely ground almonds, whole almonds, cinnamon nutmeg and cloves. When baked it acquires a distinct taste and aroma.

© Copyright Surrentum December 2005