Light and fluffy?

Published on by Grace

 Goodness I’m still getting comments on the hat post – I guess with the state of the world and especially the US we are all craving light and fluffy. Even if it’s a moment or two when we get to think about something as inconsequential as hats. 

Want more light and fluffy and inconsequential? (Boy am I giving that word a work-out. Let me pop over to a thesaurus and find a substitute. BRB)

Here you go – pick whichever you like best and substitute it where you will – 

Okay here’s another bit of common-usage errors that frost my butt and make me twitch – 

Cannelloni and manicotti ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. 

The first difference is that manicotti is NOT PASTA. It is a crepe. A CREPE, people – not pasta. 

There is no such thing as a “manicotti shell” – none, zero, zip, ninqueno, niente! Only in America. 

Allow me to quote

“Manicotti is well known in the United States as a tubular pasta usually served stuffed and baked, similar to cannelloni. The noodles are cooked, stuffed, and covered in sauce in almost the exact same way. Manicotti pasta is also sometimes sold in stores as shells instead of tubes, which can make stuffing them somewhat easier.

However, traditional manicotti is not actually a pasta. Authentic manicotti is made with crepes, not pasta, that are filled and baked. The thin crepes required for what in the United States is known as manicotti must even be made differently, in crepe pans (rather similar to the pans used to make tortillas). In Italy, manicotti would not be served as a pasta dish but as a crepe dish, or a crespelle.”

You can read the whole article HERE. 

I’ve just done a lot of hopping down the rabbit hole of manicotti/cannelloni and it seems that manicotti is basically an Italian-American thing like chop suey is a Chinese-American thing. In Italy what I know as manicotti is called crespelle. 

I make manicotti/crespelle – it’s easy-peasy boring but easy. One time my husband ordered manicotti in a restaurant and they brought him what I make – he said ‘That’s just like my wife makes!” Uh-huh.

So this is a battle I don’t think I will win. But I’ll go to my grave swearing that manicotti is not pasta and is a crepe and it is not cannelloni. 

Now imagine I’m holding my hand up. with my palm facing me and, with the tips of my fingers, I flick under my chin outwards –  that means – 

NON ME NE FREGA NIENTE!

10 thoughts on “Light and fluffy?”

  1. I've never had manicotti or cannelloni. And for some reason, I get the words cannelloni and cannoli (which I haven't had either) confused in my head, and I have to think for a second which is which.

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  3. If you're not familiar with Italian food it's easy enough to confuse the words since they have the same 'base' and both are tubes of sorts. What they also share is the ricotta filling – one sweet, one, I guess you would call savory(?) My mother often made cannoli at home – PITA – once you make the dough for the shell you wrap a circle of dough around a form and then deep fry it. You can buy metal forms or, as my mother did have a thick wooden broom handle cut down into 3 or 4 inch pieces. I can understand never having had manicotti or cannelloni but you've never had a cannoli? Are there no Italian bakeries where you live? They are not my favorite pastries but I love cannoli cream which I use to fill cream puffs.

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  4. I think everyone in the US has been mislead…even some Italian-Americans. But the peasants know best and I grew up with good old peasant Italian cooking.

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  5. I love “entry level,” especially in marketing because it means, “buy this because it's easy, but know that you will soon either lose interest and set it in a drawer, or throw it away or give it to a co-worker in a secret Santa event.

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  7. I am still checking your blog a few times a week and loving it. I love it when you get on rants.Comments, of course, will be rare from me since Blogger makes it a pain in the ass. Especially using a browser instead of an app. But today I just kind of wanted to say hello and let you know I was thinking about you and reading. I hope today is good. I have started following your model where if I am really pissy I turn the comments off. Ha. It's a habit I picked up from you. -Melissa

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  8. I shut off comments because I don't exactly like it when people start being all kind and nice. Sometimes you just want to get all the depressed stuff out of your head and you want to send it out to the World – it feels better when you can say it out loud so to speak. As for rants – oh hell when do I wrote anything else these days. My days of thoughtful, inspiring (LOL), charming little meditations are over. Being old you would think I have more of them in me – Nope – what I've got more of is depression and rants! I've got getting old bass ackwards.

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  9. I totally understand. I get annoyed by people's kindness in those moments. What is the word? Curmudgeon. Not sure on the spelling but, that word. I can be like that.

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  10. No you are NOT a curmudgeon and neither am I! I fancied myself one and even described myself as one until I looked up the meaning of the word – Nope, not me, not someone I would want to be. I wrote a poem called “Curmudgeons and Grouches”, a light hearted poem, yes, in response to that whole Marie Kondo fad, but I shall never refer to myself as a curmudgeon again!

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