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Italian · V The Canonical Dishes · Puglia

Cartellate — Honey and Vincotto Christmas Pastries

Puglia

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I

Origin

Puglia — throughout the region, with variants in all provinces. Cartellate are among the oldest documented Christmas pastries of southern Italy — the rose form may pre-date Christianity, with associations to the solar celebrations of December in ancient southern Italian cultures. They are mentioned in 14th-century Pugliese sources.

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Description

Cartellate are the most ancient and characteristic Christmas pastry of Puglia: thin, rectangular strips of pasta-like dough (flour, wine, and olive oil) rolled into concentric rose shapes by folding the dough strip back and forth, then deep-fried in olive oil until crisp and golden, then dressed while still hot with vincotto (cooked grape must) or honey. The vincotto, with its dark sweetness and slight acidity, is absorbed into the flower-shaped pastry, pooling in the concentric grooves. They are prepared in enormous batches in Pugliese households in the weeks before Christmas and kept in ceramic jars. Their origin is possibly pre-Christian — the rose shape appears in ancient Mediterranean fertility and solar celebrations.

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The Thread

—Thin dough strips fried until crisp and dressed with honey and walnuts — the Greek diples and the Pugliese cartellate are the same preparation: thin dough, fried, dressed with honey. The Greek diples are rolled into cylinders; the Pugliese cartellate are folded into roses; both absorb the honey in their folded crevices Greek
—Folded, fried dough dressed with honey after frying — the Moroccan chebakia (fried dough in a rose shape, dressed with honey and sesame) and the Pugliese cartellate are the same form and technique, almost certainly sharing an origin in the same ancient pre-medieval Mediterranean pastry tradition Moroccan
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Flavour Context

Cartellate dressed with vincotto are simultaneously crisp and sticky — the fried dough shatters at the first bite, but the vincotto has penetrated the folds and softened the interior layers. The vincotto's complex sweet-sour-grape flavour is the dominant note; the olive oil dough provides a clean, faintly savory base. They smell of Christmas in Puglia — hot olive oil, grape must, and warm dough.

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