Not my usual post today! Today is Blog Action Day, to bring awareness to World Poverty. We are all citizens of this great big wonderful world and need to help our fellow citizens in any way we can.
Food has become a precious entity. When preparing meals, if any food is leftover attempt to share that with someone that is less fortunate than you or save the leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch, but food is too precious a commodity to waste.
There are many ways we can all help be it big or small, here are two organizations that are helping out in a big way. You can join them in their campaigns or help out in your own way:
http://www.mercycorps.org
http://www.charitynavigator.org
We need everyone’s help to end this problem!
Ciao for now!
Maria
Posted inCaro Diario. (Dear diary...) Facts
Blog Action Day for World Poverty
Ciao Maria,
I came across your website because I was looking for a recipe for Ciambellone.
My family also comes from central Italy and I travel regularly to the area. I read your article about your trip to Casamari in the province of Frosinone and I can totally relate to your experience because everytime I go to Casamari on a Sunday I also thank God for the wonderful world of locally grown unpretentious and delicious food. I just wanted to say that the monks at the Casamari Abbey are not Benedectines but Cistercians and the name for the bagel like bread is not Ciambellone but Ciambella, ciambellone is reserved for the cake version. Ciambella is normally the description given to a doughnut type shape, hence the terms ciambella/e, ciambellone/i, ciambellina/e (little doughnuts) ect.
Ciao and thanks so much for visiting and contributing, it is interesting to hear from someone else who has been to Casamari. Ciambella does mean different things in differing regions of Italy. While both ciambella and ciambellone can be used to describe doughnut like cake or small doughnut shaped cake they are both used in differing regions to describe a cake like recipe. The one you are referring to is a ciambellone that is a flavorful pound cake. But in that region that I live in and family originated in you will find that cake referred to as a ciambella also. I referred to the braided bread like doughnuts made and sold across from Casamari Abbey as ciambellone because my family has made and sold them for years in Molise and Abruzzo and they have always called them ciambellone. Ciambellone tends to mean a small version of a ciambella, as you have describd here, hence their calling them ciambellone. So the different terms for the differing foods depends on the dialect and the region. And yes the Monks there at Casamari are Cistercians, that order has many Abbeys in specific regions of Italy and have now opened up a Monastery in West Virginia. But they formed their priniciples on the teachings of Saint Benedict. And yes I will definitely agree with you that the selection of the local foods sold at market after Sunday Mass there, are refreshing since yes they are unpretentious but real foods that come from a time when there were no large supermarkets or fast food places.
Ciambella or Cimabellone ..whatever the region you are in calls them..you can be sure they will be delicious and are worth a try!
I?m thrilled that I noticed this blog. Finally a worth while blog, which we can come back to frequently. Thank you for sharing this with us.