Ten Days and Counting. Are You Ready?

by Staci Troilo

Lent starts in ten days. We discussed it at Mass this week. Apparently we should already be preparing. I find that funny, because the Season of Lent is a season of preparation. So I’m supposed to be preparing to prepare? I get what they’re saying, but I’m really having a hard time suppressing the sarcastic brat in me. Here’s hoping I can do it for the rest of this post. (Maybe that’s me preparing to be a better person. Or preparing to prepare to be a better person…)

CarnivalSeveral countries celebrate the day before Lent. In Italy, the most well known celebration is the Venetian Carnival. It began to celebrate the victory of the “Serenissima Repubblica” against the Patriarch of Aquileia, Ulrico di Treven in the year 1162. In the honor of this victory, the people started to dance and make reunions in San Marco Square. The festival was outlawed in 1797, but made started to make its reappearance in the nineteenth century for special occasions. In 1979, to embrace Venice’s heritage, the Italian government brought the Carnival back. Masks are worn from the Feast of St. Stephen through Shrove Tuesday, and to highlight the fine craftsmanship of Venetian artists, there is a contest for la maschera più bella (“the most beautiful mask”) which is judged by a panel of international costume and fashion designers. Over three million visitors attend Carnival every year.

In my country, the most well known celebration is called Mardi Gras and the biggest event is held in New Orleans. It’s a full season that starts on Epiphany and culminates on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. It’s marked by parades, costumes, masks, beads, music, and the all important consumption of unhealthy foods and beverages before the sacrifices of Lent begins. I don’t like to call this season “Mardi Gras” because it translates to “Fat Tuesday,” and that term always bothered me. That’s not what the day (or the season) is really about.

The Catholic tradition calls the day before Lent begins Shrove Tuesday. “Shrove” comes from the word “shrive” and means “confess.” The term is sufficiently explained by a sentence in the Anglo-Saxon “Ecclesiastical Institutes” translated from Theodulphus by Abbot Aelfric about A.D. 1000: “In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do [in the way of penance].”

Some people call Shrove Tuesday “Pancake Day,” a name that likely came about because of the English custom of making pancakes to use up the eggs and fat which were, at the time, prohibited dietary items during the forty days of Lent. Religious laws have relaxed a little, (and I don’t think people make pancakes with lard anymore), but in many parts of the world, next Tuesday is still Pancake Day.

My family always had a big meal on the day before Lent. And we always had dessert. Because we have modern day conveniences—like refrigerators and freezers—we don’t have to worry quite so much about using up our food before Lent starts. But we still have traditions. My husband’s family always made Fritole before Lent. If you think those fried donuts are good at Chinese buffets, you have to try these! My mother-in-law has fond memories of these from her childhood with her grandparents, and my husband and his siblings have great memories of their grandmother and these from when they were young. I love them so much, I asked for them to be made when my kids had their communions (just so I’d get them twice those years). I’ll share the recipe with you here, and I’ll include it just as it’s written. I hope you try them and like them as much as my family. (By the way, when it says to fry in really hot Crisco, it means to drop by rounded tablespoons into the melted shortening.)

italian fried doughnutI don’t know if you are preparing for Lent, or preparing to prepare, but I hope you take some time in the next ten days to spend some quality time with your family, make some wonderful memories, and think of some ways you can try to affect change—in your life, in the life of a loved one, in your work life, or in your community. We can all do a little more to make our relationships better.

For Writers
Preparing… Preparing to prepare. Preparation is no joke. There is a lot to do before you sit down to write.

  • research
  • character sketches
  • outlines

Even you “pantsers” who don’t like to plan things will find it easier if you know who you’re writing about and and have your preliminary research done in advance. Benjamin Franklin once said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” We have enough going against us already, don’t we? Why not invest a little time an effort in the front of our projects so we can start off strong and build momentum rather than run into the dreaded writer’s block part way through?

So anyway, everybody, we’re on our countdown. Lent is just ten days away. We’re all preparing. Do you have a Shrove Tuesday tradition that you’d like to share? We’d love to hear it.

Traditions Gone by the Wayside

This is the time of year when I get cravings for weird things. It might be because it’s Lent and I give up a lot of indulgent foods, or it might be because of the time of year it is. For example, St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, and that means Shamrock Shakes. Usually those coincided with Lent, so unless they were released before Lent started (like this year), we’d need to not have given up sweets for Lent or freeze them until after Easter. When I moved to Arkansas, I was horrified to learn that they had never heard of Shamrock Shakes. Last year, McDonald’s had a new release here… Shamrock Shakes! However, they were “test marketing” them in limited quantities, so they were virtually impossible to come by. Finally, this year, the stars aligned. McDonald’s released Shamrock Shakes in mass quantities before Lent in Arkansas. One craving averted.

sausageThere are some cravings, though, that I’ll never get to satisfy again. Right after Christmas when I was young, my whole family would gather in my grandparents’ basement to make sausage and sopresatta. It was hard work—it took the whole day—and took a lot of preparation before that, but boy was it worth it. (Squeamish readers may want to skip ahead.)

Sheep intestine had to be soaked in ice water and citrus for days to be cleaned and deodorized. Pork shoulder had to be ground, and we didn’t have a motorized crank; it was all done by hand. Pounds and pounds were fed through the feed tube, and once coarsely ground, became the basis for the sausage and sopresatta mixtures. Seasonings were stirred into the meat by hand, requiring the men to dig into big bowls up to their elbows. Peppers were added to the sopresatta mix. Finally the mixtures were pushed back into the extruder and into the intestine casing.

The sausage was hung in my grandparents’ fruit cellar—the coldest place in the house, or cooked right away for us to eat with homemade bread and, if we were lucky, a sip of wine. The sopresatta had to be pressed until it cured completely. It took six to eight weeks to dry out. This is the time of year we’d be eating the homemade salami, and at this time every year, I get a craving for it. The stuff you buy in the stores just isn’t the same, and frankly, living in Arkansas, any kind of Italian food is hard to come by, let alone the stuff prepared the way we’re used to.

The hardest part for me, though, is saying goodbye to the memories. I was too young to actually be a part of the sausage-making process, but I remember sitting on the stool in the basement, watching my grandparents, my parents, my aunt, uncle and cousins work. I remember playing with my young cousins while the adults toiled. My grandmother only had a two-bedroom home, so the house was tiny, and filling it with that many people trying to accomplish a difficult task with a bunch of kids underfoot should have brought conflict and strife, but it didn’t. There was laughter and love and fun. Sometimes there was music, but more often than not when the music ended, people were so busy goofing around that they forgot to turn it back on. At the end of the day, the sausage and sopresatta was made for the year, but the memories were made for a lifetime.

My grandfather is gone now. My parents and aunt and uncle no longer make the sausage—it’s too much work for them. My siblings and my cousins didn’t carry the tradition on. We’ve all drifted apart—me farthest of all, nearly one thousand miles—and simply didn’t manage to keep the tradition alive. Even if we managed to start it up again, it just wouldn’t be the same without my grandfather managing the process. My husband and I tried to make some sausage a few years ago, but it just wasn’t right. Times change and traditions fall by the wayside.

So this year, I finally got my Shamrock Shake, but I won’t be having any sopresatta. At least, not any of my grandfather’s homemade sopresatta. Some traditions just can’t be replicated. We should try to enjoy what time we have with our families while we have them. You never know when those times will be nothing but treasured memories.

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