Hello and welcome back to another episode of Only a Bag in Italy travel Podcast.

I'm Nathaniel Melor.

And I'm Darcy Melton.

And in this day's episode, that's a fun way to say that we're going to be talking about pastries and coffee, 2 of Naples's most famous delights.

Yes, that's true.

I can also speak very good English, as have been demonstrated by the previous 23 seconds.

Before we get started, I just want to say thank you all so much to everybody who has been leaving us reviews, who has been following us along.

We do following along with us.

We really, really appreciate it.

It helps us tremendously.

It also helps us feel very good.

If you like to follow along or leave a review, you can do so wherever you listen to podcasts or on Apple Podcast or Spotify since those seem to be the two biggest ones in terms of interactions and followers and things like that.

We also have a website, onlybag.com, if you'd like to check out any articles.

We will be adding more articles to it eventually, especially as we get into the winter where we realize we want to kind of cover some of these what to do in the winter in Italy type of things.

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If you book through our affiliate link, we get a little kickback from the booking company.

It'll helps us and helps us pay sort of like the the website hosting bills and everything like that.

So we really do really appreciate it.

And of course, Darcy is actually going to be at the if you're in and around Savannah, GA tomorrow, Darcy's at the Isla Hope Art and Music Festival.

I'm so excited.

So yeah, she's a oil painter and she's going to be her second year at this fun outdoor festival.

We don't know what the weather is.

We're recording this about a week and 1/2 in advance, but it's supposed to be pretty nice.

And.

It was beautiful last year, so knock on wood it.

Was beautiful last year.

There's there's basically it's a couple musicians.

It's like I think a couple.

Bands, musicians.

It's a lot of musicians and bands.

The art inventors will be there from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Music until 8:00 PM.

There are three different stages for music.

I'm near the singer-songwriter stage.

I love this.

This is like in the hyper specific.

Paxton Park is the name of it.

It's in Islahope, Georgia, next to Savannah, GA.

So this is for the, for the four of you who might be listening to this from remotely near the region, this is for you 4 Yeah.

Come see me and say who you are.

I don't know.

And I just want to give a fun little shout out because I'm very excited, interested in working on this for a while.

And so it's been like the major part of our personal lives.

So this is fun to see in fruition.

And without further ado, let's jump right into it.

Naples pastries and also coffee.

Let's do it.

I think if I may start.

Yes, do it.

There is no way you can start the Naples pastries without talking about this foyatella.

OK, It's a classic.

It is the, I believe patron St.

of Naples.

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm sure if they had one that's a pastry, it'd be the soyatella, which we've actually talked about this before.

I want to say the last year and change, we talked about it and we mentioned that the soyatella, if you don't know what it is, by the way, it's essentially a triangle shaped thing.

I think people refer to them as a lobster tails despite the fact actually the names soyatella comes from the fact it looks like the layers of leaves, not a lobster tail.

It also looks way much more like a clam.

It does look like a clam.

Yeah.

Who's swallowing?

But there's apparently there's a dessert in, in like a Italian America, sort of Italian.

It's in Italian, but it's like an American dessert.

And it's a similar thing.

But they're called lobster tails.

And they're a sweeter filling though.

And this one's Foy tail.

It comes from actually the Conca Conca de Marini, which is a is a little town on the Amalfi Coast.

It comes from a convent there, I believe.

Is this what nuns live at a convent, right?

Yeah, comes from a convent there.

Nuns made this pastry and a pastry chef from Naples loved it, bought the recipe and the rights to use it and create it.

So did so and created.

I didn't know that.

It's super cool.

Yeah, and created it in Naples.

So that is how we get to the soyatella.

The reason I want to mention this is 1.

It's amazing, right?

There are two varieties, though, And it's important to know that if you ever go to a pastry shop and you ask posaveryone soyotella, can I have a soyotella?

And they're gonna be like, yeah, which one there are?

Basically it's the Riccia or the Frola.

The Frola is a short crust version of the Spoilatella.

It's kind of like the, I don't know, like the not so good version, the sort of cheating version.

The I don't want to put that much effort into this and make really, really thousands of thin layers of pastry version.

The other version, the Riccia, is like shards of glass in your mouth.

It's kind of an amazing feeling.

I realize I'm not selling this very well, but it's really fast when you crunch into it and it's just like explodes with sharp pieces of pastry.

I'm sure it's not by design and or maybe it is.

And then the inside is a sweet ricotta filling.

Ricotta filling with usually candied orange peel, sometimes candied orange peel and candied lemon peel.

So it's, it's essentially the and when I say ricotta, by the way, we're going to talk about ricotta.

I might pronounce it like 5 different ways.

I'm go ahead and apologize now.

Ricotta.

It's very different than American ricotta.

Yes, it's more like a in in a pastry, which is very classic.

It's more like a because they'll sweeten it.

It's like a sweet cream.

It's that's, I think, a perfect way to do.

It's a very it's so much closer to sweet cream than it is anything else.

Like, don't think cheese.

And I think actually we recently, this past weekend, actually a friend of us ours who has like a, so it's like a very small apiary.

He has a bunch of beehives and he invited us over to taste some honey because he's heart sort of harvested the spring, summer and fall honeys.

And he kind of wants to know like, what do you think the flavor profiles are?

Like what should I call them?

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

And so you're tasting these bees.

This is hard work.

And they tasted delicious.

And he bought some fresh ricotta.

I'd go with it because he was like, I want something super not bland, but like I want it creamy, I want it rich and I want a really, really delicate flavor.

And like even like ricotta, like really fresh ricotta should pretty much just taste like milk.

It really shouldn't have any really any other flavor at all.

And I mean those like sounds disgusting but almost it tastes like solid milk.

Yeah, that sounds terrible.

I know it's like because butter, I think is is has other flavors.

Sometimes you're kind of a little bit like, oh, it's a little bit.

Just like a nice light cream flavor.

Exactly.

So when we talk about ricotta and we will probably a lot through a lot of these things because a lot of filling in Italy, especially southern Italy is riculta where you have like pastry cream, you you have like Chantilly cream, especially in France, you have all these other sort of whipped cream, things like that.

In southern Italy, riculta is kind of like the thing sometimes not really muscarpone, but that's no riculta, especially sheep's milk riculta.

Sometimes you have Buffalo milk riculta as well.

I think sheep's milk is a lot bigger.

Well, in Sicily, where that's like the traditional cannoli has sheep's milk riculta, but it's it's still big in Campania as well, but.

I It's a different flavor as well.

It does.

That one is a little bit more, I think like the American, it's a little sharper.

It is a little bit more like, oh, that's something.

Yeah, that's cheap.

So this way I tell them is genuinely sold pretty much everywhere.

It is phenomenal.

If you're actually, we've mentioned this on the leaving with the arriving slash leaving Naples episode, there is a pastry shop in the Naples airport.

It used to be where anybody can access it, but now they actually moved.

So they're through security, so you can only access it if you're leaving Naples rather than dropping off somebody the airport.

But it's actually a really phenomenal pastry shop.

I wish I could remember the name off the top of my head, but there's only one and it's just through the security and they they sell soyatella there.

So if you can kind of take some to go.

But if you're in Naples, even just for a day, I highly recommend trying this if you like pastries at all.

There's also a pretty decent one right outside of the train station right that we've been to and I OK, so here's the thing.

Soyatella is made with lard.

That is instead of instead of butter like OK, so when you think of like milfoi, I'm probably saying that wrong.

I apologize.

Croissant dough, any sort of layered laminated dough, if you will.

It is usually made with butter in between the layers of dough.

The soyatella is made with lard.

I'm a vegetarian, not a vegan, so I eat butter but not lard.

I know it's probably a crazy thought, so I don't eat soyatella anymore.

However, I really like the Svoyatella place that's right outside the train station because not only do they do traditional sweet, very classic svoyatella, which are lovely, they also do savory svoyatella.

And I'm a, I'm a savory girl rather than sweet, you know, so super cool.

I'll try to find a link for that one to put it in the description.

I think it's actually called the Quarteti Svoyatella, the heart of Svoyatella.

It's A and it's brown branding, so it's like you need to go outside to the left.

It's essentially a brownish and that the building itself is not brown, but the, the pastry shop itself is all sort of like a brown logo, brown sign.

The, the, the servers, the people work there, the wait staff, the pastry people wear brown clothing.

It's like UPS if they started a spoiler shop.

So there's also actually one in, in this train station was called Chiro CIRO.

They do Grafa, which we'll talk about in just a second, as well as Foyatella.

So essentially they're everywhere and they're kind of phenomenal, especially when they're hot and they should be hot 9 times out of 10.

If they're not fresh, like I mean pulled out the oven, people will reheat them because they really should be served a bit warm, a bit hot.

It it has a different kind of feeling to it.

But Spoilatella classic, classic Napolitano pastry.

Well worth the, the trip, the well worth the visit, well worth the, the consumption.

We, as we've mentioned in the previous episodes, we do a lot of traveling based on desserts because you have to travel based on something.

And like, at a certain point you can like, you know, see art through pictures, but like, you cannot taste a pastry through pictures.

And plus, I feel like Soyatella is not sold in that many other places, even in Italy.

It's pretty specific to Naples, and they'll have it around Campania and maybe in some places in Rome, but it is very specific to Naples.

So if you are there and you like pastries, I absolutely recommend you try it.

And actually on that note, you see you said about Naples.

I will say that while it's definitely changing, we've talked about this before in generally I'm saying the South more than than Italy.

Food obviously is quite seasonal.

Pastries are also quite seasonal.

They're typically around certain celebration days, certain St.

days.

Sometimes it's like if it's the true, like I can't remember exactly which day it is, but there's a the day in the winter when essentially historical, you'd have to kind of use up all your milk and cheese and butter and stuff like that because it would start going bad and you're like, all right, well, we're going to have to use it.

So they would use it up on a one day and make all these pastries and it's supposed to be really like just a very gluttonous day.

Can't remember what it is, but it's somewhere in November, December, I think somewhere in there.

I thought maybe not, maybe it's earlier than that, but there's somewhere in there and it's supposed to be this fun day, which is everything's fried and yummy and delicious.

A lot of things for Easter.

So I mentioned this because while the North like does have like, I think the for Carnival in Venice, we tasted a ton of.

Fri.

Fritelle yes, OK, thank you.

I'm like I'm making sure I don't say it wrong.

And whilst I think some places do have them now year round, they were very much specifically for Carnivale.

And so every other every city in every area used to have their own like, you know, based on the the Panettone or the Colombo or whatever it is.

It's just like that's for a season.

We don't do that year round.

That's crazy.

You'd get tired of it.

So Naples I would say, I would argue that is more traditionally seasonal than any other major city in Italy.

So I think where Rome or Florence OR Santa or Venice or Milan, you can, you can find specific pastries year round like when, when they're when they're specific to a holiday or specific to a time of year.

I would say Naples, it's kind of like there are certain things that are harder to find year round.

Sequinda, May, some of these are changing.

I will say like we're going to talk about this in a second.

The Zeppole, the San Giuseppe, which is something you spilling for San Giuseppe is now year round.

The Pastiera, which is like for Easter is now year round.

Obviously this is what I thought is year round.

Let's not be crazy.

That is too good.

But this is just simply to say that some of them are, if you happen to go like during Christmas or something and you're like, I had the most amazing pastry, you can't find it again, it's just because it's a Christmas thing.

Or if you went in again Easter if you went for.

I don't, I don't.

I honestly don't know any other religious.

Other St.

Today's.

Yeah, there's, I'm sure they've celebrated them.

So that's I just wanted to quickly interject that before jumping on to the next one, the Baba.

A love of Baba.

And it's if it's, I've never, I guess I've kind of loosely heard of the rum Baba, the Baba al rum al Rum before going to Naples maybe.

You say Rum Baba in the US, right?

Rum Baba Baba.

I'm trying to say it with a really American accent.

Rum Baba.

Thank you, My American accent is very southern rum Baba, but that.

Just, but it's Baba.

Thank you.

It's Baba.

You go up at the end, Baba.

And it's actually in fact a Polish dessert.

First babak and then named after apparently the dresses that Polish woman would wear that looks the dress apparently and the pastry looks similar.

And then it was sort of, I want to say it was a Versailles pastry chef that is the one who added rum and raisins and all sorts of stuff that no longer it everyone's like, no, take out the raisins, take out the other stuff.

It's that's garbage.

The rum though, that was a killer idea.

Let's keep that going.

And actually, I think originally this pastry chef did it.

So it was soaked in rum as soon as it came out of the oven.

And people were like, great idea, terrible execution.

What if we wait like 20 minutes, it gets hard and then re soak it in rum.

I it sounds terrible.

If you've never had it, I want you to imagine sandwich bread soaked in rum so it sounds.

Terrible, no?

Like like a fluffy sandwich bread.

Like very.

Not a slice of bread.

Right, okay, but I mean sometimes it can feel like that.

I mean that I love it because it's a yeast based dough that is that rises and then is baked and it's very light, very fluffy.

So it's not a dent.

I think Sometimes I think you soak something because it's super dense or super dry and you just soak it to make it palatable.

It's not.

It's probably delicious if you.

Just like, left it alone.

It's just like super fluffy, lovely little bread.

And then they soak it in.

In in rum and sometimes sugar like sugary.

Sugary rum.

Sorry, yes.

So it's supposed to be like a sugar syrup rum mixture because apparently too much rum is just like, not good.

I don't know.

But that's also something to keep in mind if you're if you have your kids with you and they, you know, like you're the fun parents, you're obviously taking them to the pastry shop and you say, what would you like my lovely, kind child?

And they pick out the Baba.

Don't let them have it.

It is so full of rum.

It is, It is straight up.

It is straight alcohol.

It has not been cooked.

There is alcohol in it.

Yeah, that is just giving them rum.

Yeah, I mean, and not like a little bit of rum, to be fair.

Because there's usually the little like a lot like there is there's rum in the container like it is a shot of rum, essentially.

It's delicious, by the way, if you're an adult and you want to like just do that little shot real quick and then give them the rest or not give them the rest.

I don't it's not I'm not doing good at parenting right now.

And then from Paris, actually, when the Bourbons, the Bourbon sort of people, the the Bourbons ruled the French ruled Naples for all everybody seemed to rule Naples for a while, which is really fun because gave them a lot of fun pastries in between all the suffering and devastation.

And so actually Marie Antoinette's sister, apparently Marie Caroline.

This is back when French people shared first names to let they know they're related rather than the last names.

I have no idea did.

You make that up.

Just sharing the first name thing.

Yeah, 'cause I just assumed it's they're, they're both Catholic and I think Mary is.

We have to name your kid, right?

Isn't everything like Mary something?

So Marie Caradine, I'm sure she has the last name that's similar to Marie Antoinettes, who is married to Ferdinand the 4th actually apparently did not love the fact that she was living in Naples, which did not seem to be vibing back in the day because apparently Paris was like fashion, food, other things, people getting heads chopped off.

And she was like, we don't have any of that fun stuff here.

So she was like stealing things like fashion and food.

And apparently she is credited with having bringing the Rama Baba to to Naples, mainly just to to piss off her sister.

But then Napalitano, we're like, this is, I mean, wow.

The.

Drama kiss beautiful.

You nailed it with that.

So I thought that was kind of a fun one.

So if you see the Baba around, it's also it's frequently sometimes it's just it's just bland, not bland naked.

What's that word plain plain.

That's the one.

And sometimes though, it's like sliced open with a bit of cream inside, kind of with thematic Tulsa Campana, but they use a Baba instead.

There's different ones.

Sometimes it's chocolate, sometimes it's this, but the original is delightful.

They serve it with a little fork.

It's genuinely delightful.

Highly recommend.

However, that is something that you can also find in in France, Obviously it's also a French dish and Poland.

So it's it's.

And those you can find in quite a lot of places around Italy as well.

Yes, that one's kind of like that.

I think everybody recognizes it's just sort of a now at this point, it's very like a European dish more than I think specifically anyone area.

It's kind of more of like a like everybody has that now.

It's super good.

Yeah.

So if just again in terms of pastries, that's quite a lovely one.

The next one is pastillera.

What are your thoughts on Pastillera?

I have grown to like it.

I can't eat a lot of it.

It's OK.

Here's the thing, I don't love the flavor of orange flower essence and I think that is a very heavy flavor in the pastillera.

And so I don't love it, but it's I'm not.

I'm going to get it wrong when I explain it though.

So it's a kind of grain.

Typically depends, but.

It's like a pie.

It's yeah.

So it's a pie.

That's a good way to put it that essentially uses nowadays mostly wheat grain, full, full whole grains of wheat.

Some people will you sometimes mix it with spelt, some people do all spelt.

But it it depends.

Like I think that's the kind of 1 where because of the history of it, it was made for upper classes.

So it would have might made Basically, they're like the the original recipe uses wheat under the assumption that it's, I mean, nice wheat and it tastes better than spelt potentially.

I don't know.

So, but I think a lot of people prefer this, the spelt taste.

It's also you mentioned fiatello being savory.

Interesting.

And Pasteira was also savory originally.

A fair number of desserts it looks like in Italy that we're going to mention, even talk about, or even in Naples are originally savory, or at least came about at the same time as a savory dish.

Were they were they savory dishes or were they a dessert and it just lacked sugar?

No.

No, no, they were savory dishes.

Oh, OK, yeah, so I was thinking sugar for a very long time was quite expensive, expensive.

So I didn't know if they it was just a dessert but not very sweet.

Well, I'm glad you bring this up.

So if I may, I can explain the pasiera, which just it's, it's spelled, if I were doing that American accent pastiera.

And I want to say that because it can look like that might be the Italian word for pastry.

It is not.

It is just the Italian word for pastillera.

So it's a specific type.

It's usually a pie shape, sometimes very small, sometimes much larger as an actual pie.

It is essentially eggs, ricotta, whole wheat grains soaked in milk and sugar and that's kind of all cooked in the oven with orange flour blossom essence and cinnamon.

So it's all together in a pie shell, bake in the oven, pasta Punto done.

And it's genuinely, it's actually quite good.

It's typically.

So it's actually traditionally made on Holy Thursday to be eaten on Sunday.

It is something that does get better with age.

So the idea is you want to leave it after it's cooked.

You want to leave it for a couple days to really.

Oh, I didn't know.

That yeah OK and then so it's actually but it's it's started even earlier because nowadays you can go ahead and buy the wheat or the spell already pre soaked.

Usually it's just pre soaked in like not really milk.

It's other things it's like water and maybe glucose syrup and things like that It's like sometimes it's just water and they're just soft and you kind of like I guess empty the water squeeze them out and then resoak it in milk.

I don't really know because the recipe is kind of differ, but it's like traditionally you want to soften the the wheat and then soak them for like a couple days in milk.

It's a whole thing, it's a process.

So even before you get to the Thursday where you're cooking it, you're already combining these flavors.

So it does take a while.

And even where we are it's still traditionally made around Easter.

So you have to pre-order them.

It's sort of like a panetoli or something like that where they will have extras, but they do encourage you to like we're only going to make so many and they take a week to make.

And unlike, so just a quick aside, there is Panatoni, which you're probably familiar with, and then there's the Columba, which is very similar to Panatoni that is often eaten at Easter.

But unlike those two, Pasteira is often made by people still at home.

A lot of people won't make a Columba because it's difficult.

You got to hang it upside down the whole thing.

But a lot of people do still make a Pasteira at home for.

Sure.

No, actually that's a good point.

It's very much a rustic, a rustic sort of dessert, if that makes sense.

So the Pasteira has the origin story is kind of fun.

And I just agree.

It was is simply that one of the origin stories is that the people of of Naples the took like basically gave the seven symbols of like Campania to the mermaid or the siren Arthanope.

Incredible.

I love this story so.

Far I know right and it's like, can you basically to honor her?

And I was just sort of like so it was and a lot of it was like basically supposed to be like some of it.

And again this is where people like well the mythology doesn't make sense because there's no oranges back then, at least here, it was like oranges were from China, so they're like we wouldn't have oranges.

So it was like the orange blossom is the the scent of Campania.

So they were like, you know, we bring you the scent of Campania and they're like, well, it's not your sin to really to give, is it?

Because it's not from here.

Cinnamon likewise kind of existed because the Romans, I believe had cinnamon.

But anyway, so there's a lot of these kind of things, but it's supposed to be like the recall to symbolize is like the the sweetness of the earth.

And then the the milk soaked grain symbolizes the combination of the, of the agriculture and the livestock, basically.

And the sugar symbolizes wealth and all sorts of things.

They give her all these gifts and she's like, I got you great work.

Or the eggs symbolizes fertility.

That was another thing because that was apparently at the time, they do know that this similar thing traced back to a festival in which a priestess of Ceres or charities or Ceres, which is the Roman goddess of grain, would would lead a procession carrying an egg to symbolize like, rebirth and fertility and growth.

Yeah.

So they would give all these gifts and then she apparently like returned with a pestieta like, I don't know, like.

Because she has an oven in the.

Ocean, I was like, where are you living, ma'am?

So.

I still love that story though.

So they and then she's like, here's a Pistieta, but I look, she's like, I love what you we're created here.

Let me let me do you one better.

And then so since then they have this past theater and actually in this next episode, I will get more into Partheno because it is actually kind of fascinating because I did die.

I all when you said ocean, I was thinking the same thing.

I'm like what?

She has like rented an IKEA kitchen in the ocean.

Apparently sirens did not live in the ocean.

That was a much later re mythologizing of sirens where they got conflated with mermaids.

They just lived in the Siren Islands where it was just a couple like basically young women.

And I will get into that in next week's episode because it is fascinating, especially as it relates to the Castel del Ovo.

And unrelated, 2 episodes ago I said Castel del Ovo, Castel Nuovo and I couldn't remember.

And you're like, it's del Ovo.

There's also a Castel Nuovo in Naples.

It's.

Different though these people so, but they're two different places.

Very much so.

Very much so.

So the in, in in Naples, there is a, there's a convent called the San Gregario Armeno.

And it's a convent which like nuns were not allowed to leave, basically.

But.

Meaning they were clustered.

Clustered.

Yeah, yeah, no, I don't think like imprisoned.

I think just like you're just once you join, you got to you got to commit to for life kind of thing.

And they were the ones who had basically created the recipe for the pasteira that we can at least actually trace back as a 16th century.

And it was again, a little bit kind of shifty because either they based off some guy's recipe or some guy based his recipe off their thing.

It's a whole thing.

But essentially they were taking the really nice things of the region.

And they, they attribute it to 1 unnamed nun who basically was like, she's like, what if we took this really sweet thing and this thing and this thing and the smell of the orange blossoms and combined them because they had, they still are orange trees to this day at the San Gregario Armeno and combined them together and, you know, created this pastillero.

So, but like, and it was always for wealthy people.

So it wasn't like anybody can go and get a thing.

You had to like order if you're wealthy.

And I was always fascinating.

So there's a number of sources saying that poor people would gather outside the doors of the convent.

They weren't allowed in just to smell the Pasteira because I would like give them hope.

And I'm like, no, I would be so pissed if I was like, if they're like, oh, can you smell that amazing smell, that's not for you.

And I was like, that is like, no wonder people back then were revolting all the time.

I would be revolting if you're like some things if.

Someone tempted me with the smell of pastries and said you can't have it.

I would lead a revolution.

Right.

I was.

That's because we're not like wealthy now.

But if I see a pastry, it looks amazing.

Like what?

We got to try it.

I mean, we can, we can splash out for a pastry, but like back then, if you're like there's no splashing out for pastries.

I always.

You just don't have access, right?

And yeah, wow, that is.

Heartbreaking that's devastating.

So that's I thought was a fascinating and there's also a rumor that is is fun room.

I think from around Easter.

There's always like the the the the gaudy uncle likes to like to like.

Well, did you know that one of the rumors of the way that not gaudy.

What is it not gauche?

The other the the uncle body body.

That's the word body, not gaudy.

After a little too many glasses of wine, he'll always be like, well, one of the rumors is that because they made it pastiero, it was amazing.

And everyone was like, how do they do it?

What's their secret?

And somebody came up with the idea that they need the dough with their bare buttocks.

The nuns do.

Yeah, the nuns do and they but they put the note on that counter and sit on it and then have some sort of motion in which they need the dough.

And who came up with that?

I'm like some dude outside something from the plus Sierra, right.

And so I thought that was interesting.

I needed to share it for the group.

I apologize that for those of you who are like I, I'm not eating that now and I just thought it was also interesting.

I don't know who this this the Queen Teresa is married to Ferdinand the Second, who never smiled or never laughed.

This guy, this woman never smiled and never laughed, but apparently when eaten the pastiera she did for the first time too wit I I don't think that's I'm using that right too.

Witch Queen King Ferdinand the second was quoted to have said now we have to wait till next Easter to see her smile again, which again I feel like I'm sad.

Yeah, I'm like this probably is not a very lovely life for this person and this seems like a terrible situation.

So I don't know what.

Maybe make that Lady some more Pasteita.

Right, I'm like I'm sure we can figure out a.

Or talk to her about her feelings because clearly something is not going well, right?

That's what I'm talking about.

You like never smile.

And so I don't know, it was it was a very interesting sort of story.

But that is the Pasteira.

And I want to also mention that is one that is now available year round.

It is something that is, is well, it definitely started as an Easter only thing.

I made this whole day about how it's Easter only.

It is something you will see year round at at pastry shops.

So it's something like if you're like, oh, that sounds really good, but I'm not going to be there for Easter.

You are fine.

It's it's now it's available everywhere.

And unfortunately, it's one of those things I will say that does have layers of deliciousness.

Like I think the soyatella, honestly, there are great ones and there are good ones.

And I don't think I've had a bad one.

Like not only one that because I think there's so much work that goes into it that like you, you, you almost don't want to put garbage into it.

You know, you're like, I just spent hours making this dough.

I'm not going to put batter to Colta and stuff like that into it.

So I feel like they're all, they're all the baselines.

Like that's a decent soyatella and then they get better from there.

But with Pasteira, there can be some not so good ones.

So that is something where it's nicer to go to a nicer pastry shop.

Or again, if honestly legit, if you are in Italy around Easter and somebody's like, hey, by the way, my mom made this past theatre say yes, just say 100% yeah.

They're usually amazing.

Honestly though, if you're in Italy and you meet Italian and they say my mom, my grandma, my whoever, my dad made this thing, do you want to try it?

I know it's not safe really to accept homemade goods sometimes, but you probably want to say yes.

Yeah, 100 genuinely like it might be terrible because like don't not with grappa.

I would be honest because sometimes.

Because it might actually.

It might actually make you blind yeah don't do that.

But like anything else, non alcohol wine fine, but like with with hard alcohol probably don't because you never know if it's like some toilet still they got going on.

But the rest of it is probably.

It's probably not made in the toilet, but it might be way too strong and not good for you.

But it's if someone's family made some sort of pastry or something.

I would say yes.

Yeah, not medical advice.

So the next one, Torta Caprezi.

I love a torta Caprezi.

Your mom loves it more than I do.

She talks about them all the time.

Well, because her partner also makes really good ones.

So really kind of like, you know, I think it works out really well.

So essentially this is great for people who are gluten free, people who don't eat gluten or flour.

It is an almond flour tort.

Yeah.

Short cake essentially made with chocolate.

So it's chocolate and almond and it's incredible.

Sugar I think as well, which means unfortunately it's not vegan friendly but it is gluten free friendly.

Thank you and it's delicious.

It's go crazy after the island of Capri but I don't.

Every time I look into it, there's zero evidence actually came from copper because.

They're like that's.

Insane.

There's no almonds or no chocolate on that island.

But I think this is more like in the style of and everyone's like, yeah, who lives there eating this.

So, but it is if, and I will say it should be like genuinely should be gluten free, but you it's always best to ask.

However, every time we have asked just to check, usually if we're with somebody or my mom will ask for herself and they're always like, of course it doesn't have like you're not going to destroy the recipe of the torta caprese, put some wheat in it.

So you should be fine, but I would simply ask.

And it's lovely, yeah.

I guess moving to the Rococo.

Yeah, this one, I don't know what is this?

It's you've seen it, we've both seen it.

You don't like it, which might be why you don't know it.

You've just blocked it up.

It's a round cookie type thing.

It's very hard.

It's kind of almost like it has an egg white wash on it, has a glazed look to it.

It's essentially almonds, has almonds as well as was like basically spices.

Cinnamon, I believe should be cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves.

I want to say in there maybe cardamom, but it has it's essentially think of fall spices, almonds, egg whites, sugar, flour in a cookie.

It's very hard.

They're, they're great gift for somebody who you want them to break their teeth.

It's, but I mean, generally it's actually delicious.

And, and, and there are a bunch of stuff like this in, in Italy, in Naples specifically, it's ones like almonds and black pepper and almonds and this about but a classic 1 is just, it's essentially full spices and almonds and sugar.

And they're great for just kind of munching if, if, yeah, if you want like a little fun dessert.

So I guess I'm just, we're just moving through them, by the way, Alfred, to make sure that we get to all them in time.

Yeah, so let's talk about the Grafa.

Hit me with the Grafa.

So in my notes that ethanol made for me, it says you can try one from chiro at the train station.

Yes, I mentioned Chiro earlier.

They have a little stall.

It's Grafa and Spoiltella.

It's like the only two things they sell because I've made.

There's like two or three little other things, but that's they have fresh, fresh Grafa that you can see being made.

They have a camera hooked up.

It's ridiculous.

We can see it being made both with your eyeballs and.

With a camera, it's like a doughnut, right it?

Is like a this is where we're going to.

OK, so you had to say that, right?

It is.

There is some.

Hot debate.

Some, yeah, hot debate over what a zeppola is, a zeppola is, and which I'll get to in just a second.

But it is like what you and I think of a zeppolae, a fried piece of dough with sugar.

Yeah.

It is, in fact, not what a zeppola is.

A zeppola is actually not that.

And that is where a lot of this debate comes from.

Is to say, what is it called when two people from different parts of the world have the same thought at the same time?

No, it's just apparently people in Campania both are just like, that's a Zeppo.

And it was like, no, it's not like I don't care.

I've named it Zeppo now it looks kind of like it and like but you're wrong.

Like I don't care.

OK, so so tell me what this is then?

So the, the, the Grafa is actually a holdover pastry again from when Naples was under Austrian rule.

I told Spanish, French, Austrian people will not leave Naples alone.

And everybody has brought something including horror, terror, devastation, depression and pastries.

And this is essentially the Napolitano version of a Kropfen.

It's KRAPFEN.

It's a it's actually interestingly, if you're in Austria, which is that coastal town near Rome, there's a very lovely Kropfen shop that is quite delicious.

Inexplicably, inexplicably.

Yeah, I didn't realize what I was like.

Oh, this is quite lovely.

And so this is essentially the graph is the same thing.

It's a wheat and potato based dough in a in a little like kind of a.

It's like a ichthis shape.

It's like that, that Jesus fish shape.

Yes, it's like a Jesus fish shape.

Thank you.

Is that what that is called?

I was like an ichthis.

That's an isthmus.

Isthmus.

That's a terrible word.

Isthmus.

I don't know what that is.

The the the the.

It's not a straight but then.

Oh, OK.

Yeah, it's Smith.

I'm also having.

Terrible times, but this pastry is the shape of the Jesus fish.

It's.

Essentially, the fried dough covered in sugar.

Super basic, super delicious, super simple, and again, really only good when they're fresh.

And I say fresh in an hour or two of it being made past like a couple hours.

It's just that oil just gets cold and weird and it's OK, but it's not great.

It's like, and the reason I mentioned that train station is you can see them being made fresh and a lot of places will make them fresh.

And one thing you and I have actually done is ask for not actually the train station, but other places without sugar because the dough itself is not very sweet.

It's almost an unsweetened dough, almost not quite.

Like it's still got a little sugar in there, but it almost tastes like a savory funnel cake somehow like an unsweetened funnel cake in a certain sense.

And then of course, they put a ton of sugar on it and then it tastes delicious.

Yes.

The reason I bring this, the zeppole crop and Grafa situation is there's a zeppole.

Well, there's a zeppole, right?

Which is essentially a fried thing, like a fried bit of dough.

Yes, it's fried dough.

It tastes a lot like a doughnut.

Originally it had for a lot of places and still do, including where we are.

They put anchovies in it.

Not all of them, but there is one with anchovies.

And that that going back to the one about how like a desserts, apparently all of them started savory.

I believe this one started savory.

And then they were like, OK, so instead of putting fish in this beautiful piece of fried thing, what if we didn't do that and we put like sugar in instead?

And somebody's like, Carlo, you have an idea.

That is my best Italian accent.

That does not feel problematic.

And so they made essentially the zeppola.

And one of them is the Zeppola de Sancho Zeppe.

It is now again available year round and available a lot of Italy, even though it's sort of sort of local to to the South, it's it's still available in a lot of Italy.

And essentially there's a shoe pastry again, French people bring the shoe pastry to to the Naples filled with a sort of a custardy cream, more more so than ricotta.

Some people will do ricotta, but a lot of times custardy cream and then a little black cherry right on top.

It's actually weirdly good.

It's just it's very nice 98% custard and then also then there's like a shoe pastries involved.

But no, there's a huge argument over what's a zeppole, what is a a grafa?

And there's another word when I think instead of using oil in the dough, use water in the dough.

Specifically in the Chilenta region.

Apparently they insist on calling things that are that are not zeppole zeppole instead of it's like a struquial or something like that.

There's another word for it specifically when it's a water based.

And I thought that was fascinating.

So in in the Chilenta region, which is essentially where we are, they insist on calling it the same thing or calling it different things.

The same thing when it's not that thing.

OK, that surprises me.

Yeah, people here are usually pretty strict on calling things by their specific names.

And that was interesting because it's obviously the Wikipedia in English is like no information with the Wikipedia.

Italian is full of sources including but not limited to this fun little call out where it's like, and of course the people of the Chelenta refer to it as zeppole when it's not a zeppole and they quote something.

And I'm like, really?

Wow, that is OK.

So I thought that was fascinating.

It is fascinating.

I think that is kind of the last, the last major pastry we know to talk about now that we're at 35 minutes in.

But I, I think we wanted to very also briefly mention because in Florence we talked about there are really nice cafe, like really fancy old school cafes, same thing in Naples obviously.

And we wanted to mention one of those as well.

Yeah, So this is near the Piazza del Plebecito.

Did I say that right?

Yes, I think I just bunked my thing with my classes.

I apologize already.

Near the Piazza de Plebecito is the Cafe Grambinus.

It's a fancy cafe.

And is it the oldest one in Naples?

It's the oldest one.

I think it's the oldest continuing operating one in Naples.

Oldest one is still there.

I believe, yeah, it's, I say I believe because that's what they claim.

And I'm not doubting them, but I don't know if that it's not true.

I know.

But it sounds good, you know?

And it's one of the ones where like artists and writers and stuff like that met up at.

It's also one that is right next to the Opera House, so it would have been one of those ones like when it's open late, people from the opera would have gone for a little dessert in a Cafe.

You can still have a coffee there.

It's €1.80 at the bar.

As I mentioned to in a previous episodes that the price of coffee at the bar is regulated by the region.

So you can't charge more than a certain amount for coffee at a bar, whether you're at the nicest bars in that region or the cheapest bars.

It has to fall within a certain price range or far below a certain price, I should say.

And this one is, it's 180.

So it's a little bit more expensive and but it's like, if you're looking for like, I just wanna kinda check out where the, where the famous people would hang out, hung out at, this would have been it.

And I just wanna mention that cuz yeah, if you're kinda just wanting some fun with some just like a little splash of luxury in the trip, that could be a fun way to do it.

Before we go, we did a whole episode on this about the coffee in Naples.

If you want to go listen to that whole episode.

We go really deep into it, but I think we should just briefly touch on coffee in Naples.

So when you have a coffee, it, like we always say, it's cheaper to have it at the bar.

That is the most Italian way to have it is just go to the bar quickly have your your espresso to Cafe.

So in Naples and in the South, coffee is much shorter and it is the way to do it, in my opinion.

It's really, really nice.

In the north, it'll be longer, which means they just push more water through the, the coffee beans.

And in Naples, there's this tradition of the, what is it called?

The extended coffee.

The basically whenever you get a coffee and you pay for the next.

Person's coffee, I think a suspended.

Coffee is, it's from Naples, right?

Is that?

Tradition.

So basically it's the same thing that we have in the US that you've seen a lot.

You get in the Starbucks line and you're nice and you pay for the next person's coffee, which is probably like $15.00 because you're at Starbucks in Naples.

There's the tradition of having your coffee and then paying for the next person's, which is like a euro.

Or paying just for a not necessarily it doesn't be somebody in there because we've talked about before too.

There's, it is common in Italy if you're Italian, more so than visiting, if you're at a coffee shop and somebody comes in that you know, it is common, it is expected and accepted behavior to pay for their coffee.

Likewise, some will do it for you.

So I mean, so don't be like it's essentially if you if like I don't know if you're staying an Airbnb or something that and you happen to run into your host at the cafe.

It is not uncommon from their buyer coffee, not because you're staying there, but because they know you and that you came in after them to a cafe.

It's.

And if you really want to impress an Italian that you know, if you get to the cafe before them and then you pay for their coffee, I'm sure they will be impressed.

Yes.

And so, but the cafes was I think so special in Italian.

It's, it's essentially just when you buy a coffee, you buy another and they have a receipt and sometimes they'll stick in a little thing or sometimes just have a little board to know.

And anybody who is not doing well financially can come and basically just be like, I, I need a coffee.

And they're like, yeah, grab a coffee.

So it's a kind of a way of, of making sure that the everybody can still afford the classic Napolitano pastime of drinking coffee.

Yeah, which I love and yeah, that's I think there's a like a good little addition and I think I think you mentioned it's short at the bar.

Yeah, OK.

Just making sure we've.

And again, we've did a whole episode on coffee specifically in Naples, I believe, right, Coffee Naples.

Think we at least we've done at least we've talked a lot about the culture around it so.

Yes, Coffee culture, we did a whole episode on that.

If you want to go back and listen to it, you don't want to go into all of that now.

But I just wanted to mention the coffee.

You take it at the bar.

It's the cheapest and I feel the most Italian way.

It's really short in Naples.

It gets longer, more water in it the further north you get.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Awesome.

Now I really want a coffee and a pastry.

I know.

We got to go pick up your package.

That's coffee shop.

And there we go, this is where we leave.

Y'all going to get a coffee and a pastry?

Welcome to Italy.

And with that being said, thank you all so much.

We will return next week with another couple fun episodes, including but not limited to I believe Darcy will be talking about the Napolitano Catacombs, the catacombs in Naples.

Spooky Halloween episode.

Very, very excited.

So stick around for that.

If you'd like to follow along to keep updated, you can do so by clicking the follow button and leaving our view.

If you enjoyed the podcast, With that being said, thank you all seriously so much for listening.

We do appreciate it.

Thanks for listening, Kanti Abracchi.