Fried Dough Translation

[fishacura]

My grandmother would always make Fried Dough for the family at a pre-Christmas feast. However, we referred to it phonetically as "GRU-sta-lee". I am trying to find out where this comes from. It has to be a dialect for something but certainly not Zeppoli as it sounds way too different right? Any ideas/thoughts? Anyone heard this term?

[liviomoreno]

Crostelle

http://www.google.it/url?sa=t&source=we ... WA&cad=rjt

[fishacura]

Well, this looks like it's making me download a file which I cannot do from here. I also Googled the word "crostelle" but didn't come up with anything. Can you cut and past the text of what's in the link? I'm on the edge of my seat because this looks like something that could be "dialected" for lack of a better word, into "GRU-sta-lee."

[liviomoreno]

Unfortunately it is in Italian

http://www.kenwoodclub.it/ricetta_vedi. ... io=Kenwood

[fishacura]

That's okay...this is terrific.

What's odd to me is that this is the only instance of this term "Crostelle" I can find on the entire net. 99.9% of the time fried dough is referred to as Zeppoli.

I'm wondering where Crostelle came from. My family is from Cosenza but I have never really heard/seen this term anywhere else until now. Interesting.

[liviomoreno]

I believe that Crostelle is a term specifically used in Calabria...

[johnnyonthespot]

Try this Google search instead: http://www.google.com/search?q=crostell ... 6c17f79c85

And, images: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&rls= ... 09&bih=645

[fishacura]

That's great thanks! It's interesting because this has to be the term from which it is derived, but what's interesting is that what we refer to as this, is actually not this exact food. Ours is more on the order of Zeppoli or Funnel Cake (softer dough once cooked...not hard and crispy).

Another couple family

"da-DA-lay" which are round and hard and flavored with a bit of anise. AGain, I am sure this is some bastardization of something.

"sca-LEE-lee" which are hard twists of dough coated in honey.

It's actually fun discussing this as a nice change of pace from the name/family aspect of genealogy. It's almost a family tree of food and dialects. My apologies for butchering the language. On a side note, I took a couple of semesters of Italian and when trying to speak it properly, nobody in my family could understand me:

Come here = "vene qui" not "vene-ca"
Where = "Dove" not "a-do-ee"

FUNNY!

[sforza]

da -DA -lay.
Taralles
Italian "pretzels"

[sforza]

our family "bastardization" of taralles, by the way, is dadals. This particular pronunciation comes from Avellino province in Campania.

[fishacura]

I have a couple more but will need to ask my dad. One is similar to the honey twists but they're balls (about the size of oblong golf balls) darker but also with honey. I"ll find our name for them...

[sforza]

Those balls are called, again in the Avellino dialect of my mother (phonetically), striadel.

[LilyBean359]

Hello,
I was cooking with my grandma who is a second generation immigrant from Sicily. Her mother used to make homemade bread and with the leftover dough she would make fry bread. She would fry it, coat with olive oil and shred parmesan cheese on top. She called this fry bread bi-cyat-si. I don't even know how to spell it to look it up. Does anyone know what this word would be? Thanks!

[lynnef]

My grandmother (her parents were born in Caulonia, Reggio di Calabria) made "fried dough" (what we called it) which I absolutely loved! She'd deep fry it and then sprinkle sugar on it. It was golden brown and soft...yum!

[Rossonero3]

I'll chime in on this...In Lawrence, MA where there used to be a very large southern italian community, there were a couple of bakeries that made what you are describing and they were called "Crispelli'. You could get them with a single anchovy inside (I LOVE THESE) or with a little ricotta. We still eat them from time to time.

https://www.wellseasonedgourmand.com/cr ... n-closing/