Located on the most colorful festival of the year. Mindful of my past as a schoolteacher by the red pen, I put in the little paper masks with Alessandro, tempera and glitter. My kitchen looks like a laboratory of a Venetian mask-and Ale is discovering that the temperature is not dissolved poi così male nemmeno al palato (!). Tra una lavatrice per lavare l'ennesima felpa piena di macchie variopinte e un'uso smodato di sgrassatore per cercare di tirare via la colla dai termosifoni, mi è venuto in mente di fare qualche ricerca sulle usanze tipiche di questo periodo. Ed ecco il primo di una serie di post "carnevaleschi". Nelle prossime puntate, altre curiosità, idee per i bimbi (perdonate le manie di una mamma!) e qualche ricetta!
I coriandoli sono piccoli ritagli di carta colorata usati nelle festività per essere lanciati in aria o su persone. Tipici del Carnevale e di altre festività come il Capodanno, spesso il loro uso è abbinato a quello delle stelle filanti. In English, German, French, Dutch, Swedish and English are strangely called the Italian word for "confetti". The source of linguistic confusion originated in Italy during the Renaissance when the parades of carriages, typical of many cities were thrown into the crowd disguised corn and oranges, flowers, egg shells filled with aromatic essences, coins .. It is proof that even before 1597 the same were also called confetti confetti " cuopronsi confetti confetti of sugar", that were used at times of the coriander plant seeds instead of almonds to make the little cakes. This custom, rather expensive, soon fell into disuse and white confetti were gradually replaced by small bullets, look identical, but made of plaster.
It seems that in Milan, in the nineteenth century, they began to pull something else: tiny disks of paper that the minimum gust of wind lifted into the air, as if a veneer on the snow that floats paraded . The genius must be found, according to legend, the inventive engineer Henry Mangili Crescenzago which began marketing circles as confetti scrap of paper, made from perforated card used in sericulture for rearing silkworms.
The confetti began to be produced on an industrial scale and not as waste material, and using colored paper, thanks to the invention of the engineer Ettore Fenderl: According to a story told by himself (and also reported in a radio interview Rai, 1957), to celebrate the Carnival Trieste in 1866 would cut triangles of paper as they had the money to buy the sweets of plaster then in use.
Today confetti are the delight of many children that will launch during the traditional carnival parade of floats, but they are used, more generally, to emphasize the festive nature of special events.