CAMILLA CONFORTI

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New Year’s Eve Good Luck Italians Rituals

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Welcome back! Did you have a happy Christmas? 

Are you ready to celebrate New Year’s Eve, say goodbye to this terrible 2020 and welcome 2021 in the best way ?!

Today we will recount where this festivity originates from but above all we will give you some practical advice of the Italian tradition on how to greet the old year and enter the new one, bringing luck and wealth with you!

The story of New Year’s Eve: it is a festival of pagan origin that has its roots in the era of the Babylonians, who, however, usually celebrated the change between one year and another at the spring equinox, returning the agricultural tools received in loan as a sign of good intentions for the new year. In 46 BC Julius Caesar then dictated the transition to the Julian calendar and the feast, which for the ancient Romans was intended to celebrate the god Janus (probably the main divinity of the pantheon in the archaic era) thus began to fall between 31st December and 1st January. Starting in 1582, with the introduction of the current calendar by Pope Gregory XIII, history then took a very specific direction, and here is the New Year as we know it.

The traditions linked to this festival have also endured over time.
Such as the use of mistletoe hanging in the house, considered auspicious as a source of purification as well as a real elixir against sterility.


From the ancient Celestial Empire, China, instead comes the custom of wearing something red (usually underwear) to celebrate the beginning of the new year, a tradition that came through the Silk Road in the past centuries and consolidated over time in the Italian tradition.
Actually, according to Chinese tradition, red is the color that scares Niàn, the devouring beast that, on New Year’s Eve, comes out of the sea depths to feed on human flesh. Coming from this origin, wearing red or red decoration has become a tradition in Chinese New Year’s culture.
But red was also considered a good omen in imperial Rome:
during the celebrations for the new year, in fact, women dressed in “porpora” (it’s a precious red-tones color dye made of rare snails, it’s considered as the most excellent color that time. The handmade dye could vary in various shades, and the most required and precious one was a kind of bloody-red or fire-red), the color of courage, passion, power and fertility. 
Another auspicious tradition is to leave the windows open at midnight or to throw away old things to make room for new projects. In the past, many in Italy decided to complete this propitiatory rite even throwing useless objects from their balcony.
From North to South of our country there are many different auspicious traditions including culinary ones, below we have collected some of the most representative and known.


Starting from one of the inevitable traditions such as the toast, (with of course Italian wine), bubbles are a classic of the New Year’s Eve to welcome the new year with panache, and it’s perfect to sparklingly accompany your desires towards the year to come. The bottle must be uncorked at midnight and, to ward off bad luck, it must make a big “BANG!”.  


Then we have lentils.In Italy, the great New Year’s Eve dinner includes a portion of cotechino (a type of sausage made from boiled pork meat) and lentils at midnight. Pork, fat par excellence, is a symbol of abundance, while the famous legumes are good luck charms due to their shape which recalls coins.
Another New Year custom widespread in some Italian regions provides, instead, to light some candles before midnight. Tradition has it that a green candle is used to have wealth and a white and red one for love, letting them burn and consume throughout the New Year’s Eve.

Here are some notions on the history of the New Year and some
“trouble-free” advice to greet the old and welcome the New Year! 

We wish you a Happy New Year and see you in 2021 !!!

Lesso e Pearà Tips

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As promised in this article we will give you some information and suggestions about the Lesso e Pearà, to guarantee you a perfect and exquisite result!

Let’s start with the Lesso, and make a little distinction between Lesso Veronese and Bollito alla Piemontese, there are few substantial differences:

  • Meat cooking methods:

When we talk about the Bollito we mean that the meat is introduced into the water that is already boiling. When we talk about Lesso, we mean the meat that is introduced into the cold water and slowly brought to a boil.
With the first technique you will have a tastier meat but a more delicate broth, while with the second the opposite, a more substantial and tasty broth and a more delicate meat.

  • Dish composition and meat cuts:

Piedmontese Bollito by tradition is composed of 4 parts: seven cuts of beef cooked together in the largest pot, seven small different meat pieces cooked in their own separate pots, seven Bagnèt or sauces (rustic green, rich green, red, horseradish, mustard, cugna, honey) and four side dishes (boiled potatoes, spinach in butter, sautéed mushrooms and sweet and sour onions). 
While for the Lesso alla Veronese there are usually three or four cuts (including chicken) and it is accompanied by Pearà sauce.
The Lesso must be cooked over low heat, because everything must not boil, but simmer, remember, this is important. 
In my opinion, the choice of the pot is not too important an aspect, but consider that:

1 – the higher the pot you use, the less liquids will evaporate, thus leaving a greater amount of broth inside.

2 – The thicker the bottom of your pot, the less you need fire.
That is: pot with a nice thick bottom = savings energy.

To recap: when you are less interested in having an excellent broth, but instead want a tasty boiled meat, immerse the raw meat in water that is already boiling. If you want an excellent broth (which is fundamental to make a good Pearà) put the meat and the veggies together with cold water in the pot.  
If you followed my advices and are cooking the pieces of beef we mentioned, let them simmer for at least 3 hours. Remember to skim the broth in the first hour of cooking, it is very important. If you want to avoid frothing the broth during cooking, you can use my nonna’s trick, that is: prepare the Lesso in advance and let it cool outside the window (during the winter) or in the refrigerator, in this way all the fat will come on the surface and it will be easier to degrease the day following.
Personally, I believe that a mixture of aromas such as celery, carrots and onion can also be enough. The tomato paste, which is often used in the south, tends to make the broth more colorful obviously, but the original recipe is not debatable!
An extra tip? You can give an important and tasty note of flavor by adding a bay leaf or cloves, but it is optional and not essential to the success of the recipe. And remember to add the salt and pepper only at the end.
Consume the Lesso while it is hot, to maximize the flavor of the various pieces of meat. 
If you have prepared it in advance, I recommend that you leave it in the cooking broth until you cut it. You will prevent the meat from becoming stringy.
Remember to always use good quality meat, it will make the difference, and if you have used fresh ingredients, both the boiled meat and the broth can be stored in the refrigerator for a couple of days or frozen, and reuse it for risotto or other recipes.
About the pearà, here there are some tips and info… while it cooks, it could make a crust on the bottom: do not scratch it with a spoon but leave it alone.Many Veronese people argue that Pearà is better if you forget it on the stove, mixing it as little as possible.
You can use old bread, but not too old. You will have to grate it finely. If you do not have it or in any case it is not dry enough, you can dry it a little in the oven. If it is already grated bread, you can toast it in a pan (without burning it).
Some do not use grana cheese (or parmesan) because being Pearà, at its origins, a popular and poor dish of the so-called “leftover-redo-cuisine”, the use of nutritious and precious cheese was not foreseen. In reality, the recipe changes depending on the area of ​​Verona, and sometimes it changes from family to family.

The traditional pan on which to cook the pearà is the terracotta one (also called earthenware) “resting” on a flame spreader, but you can also use a non-stick pan with a thick bottom without any problem.

Pearà is a typical dish of winter, especially for dinners and lunches during the Christmas period.

So… here there are all my tips and extra info about this unique and delicious dish, I really hope that you’ll try it at home and let us know if you like it!

Happy Christmas to all of you!

Camilla & MJHC

Christmas Recipe – Lesso e Pearà

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Hello everyone, as anticipated in the last article today we will give you the recipe to prepare an excellent Lesso e Pearà at your home.

Ingredients for 4 people, for the Lesso you will need:

  • 1/2 hen
  • 800gr of beef tongue
  • 1 kg of beef shoulder 
  • 4 liters of cold water
  • 2 sticks of celery
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 large onion
  • 1-2 bay leaves
  • cloves (optional)
  • salt
  • pepper

For the Pearà you will need:

  • 200 grams of stale / grated bread
  • 80/100 grams of very fresh ox marrow
  • 1 liter of defatted meat broth
  • salt
  • lots of freshly ground pepper
  • Parmesan type cheese (optional)

Let’s start by preparing the Lesso:
As mentioned in the last article, Lesso is a cooking technique suitable for many foods that becomes a freely composable dish with more or less noble and more or less numerous cuts of meat. And let’s not confuse it with the mixed Bollito of the Piedmontese tradition where the cuts of meat are strictly seven and the cooking technique of the meat differs slightly from the Lesso.

For our Lesso we have chosen 3 different types of meat: beef shoulder, chicken and tongue.
The procedure for preparing this dish is simple but the main ingredient is time, in fact the water should never boil but ‘quiver’ over low heat for at least three hours.
To make a good Lesso, start preparing the meats you will use, check the half hen well and if necessary use a flame  to eliminate any residual feathers, remove excess fat from the tongue. Clean the vegetables well, but keep all the skins. Prepare the cloves (optional) and bay leaves.

In a very large pot put all the ingredients and cover with cold water, turn on the heat and cook over moderate heat for at least 3/4 hours (the water must never boil but only quiver otherwise the meat will become hard). Continuously remove residues that come to the surface with a skimmer. When the Lesso is done, add a little salt. The broth thus obtained needs to be filtered and can be used for other preparations (such as tortellini in brodo, pearà or risotto). When serving, cut the different varieties of meat and place them on a warm serving dish.

Once the broth and Lesso are ready, we can start preparing Pearà by removing the marrow from the bone, using a knife, then melting the marrow over low heat and pouring it into a kitchen sieve to remove the impurities. Add the finely grated bread to the hot marrow in the pan and mix well, stirring with a wooden spoon, add the broth and cook slowly over low heat for at least two / three hours.
Stir every now and then to prevent the sauce from sticking to the bottom.
Add plenty of freshly ground pepper and a couple of tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese (cheese optional). There are those who love a very dense pearà, others softer, everything is in the proportion between bread and broth. Our advice is therefore to not put all the broth, but to keep a little to add eventually towards the end of cooking. Serve the Lesso accompanied by a generous portion of steaming sauce.

And your Christmas dish is ready, and trust me, it’s something delicious… try it at home and let us know if you liked it! Stay connected because tomorrow an extra article will arrive with some tips to make these two Christmas recipes infallible.

Happy Holidays to all!
Camilla & Mara

Christmas Vibes

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Hello everybody! Sorry for the waiting, in these weeks at the end year we are having crazy busy days and didn’t have the chance to stop a minute! 

Btw… today we’d like to talk about Christmas traditions around here.
As we said in our first article, I was born and still lives today in Verona, the city of love, of Rome & Juliet, good Amarone wine and excellent food.

So today we want to talk about one ancient traditional food that we usually have during Christmas festivities in Verona, “Lesso e Pearà” (boiled meat with a special sauce that you can only find here in Verona).

Next week, a few days before Christmas, we’ll also post the recipe so if you want to try it at home for the festivities you’ll have the chance.

“Lesso e pearà” it’s a very ancient recipe, it is said that the recipe dates back to about 1400 years ago, during the reign of the King of the Lombards Alboino, who in 568 led his people to conquer Italy, abandoning their homeland, Pannonia. Succeeded in the feat that all the Germans had dreamed of (conquering Italy), he became a legendary character.

Etching – 1779 – Author:
Bartolozzi Francesco

Legend has it that it was the court cook of Alboin who invented this simple but substantial recipe because he needed a food capable of restoring strength to Rosmunda, who, forcibly became the king’s wife and was letting herself die of hunger after being forced to drink from the skull, transformed into a cup, of his father Cunimondo, king of the Gepids, killed in battle by Alboino himself. 

A truly cruel and creepy story but it gave us one of the most important and exclusive Veronese dishes, which is constantly highly appreciated and loved also by whoever has ever tasted it. It is the Dish that every Veronese grandmother prepares very often on cold winter Sundays and definately for Christmas lunch. It is one of those scents that remind you of childhood and home.

But first of all let’s try to understand what’s “pearà”: it is actually a poor sauce or, more properly, a simple sauce.

As already mentioned before, this sauce is traditionally served accompanied by mixed boiled meat. The spread of this sauce is limited almost exclusively to Verona and its province and is prepared using broth, marrow, stale bread, salt and lots of pepper (and it is in fact from here that the meaning of the word “Pearà” derives, the Veronese dialect word which means “peppery”).

Usually before “Lesso e Pearà”, we would have a first course with broth, such as paparele or tortellini from Valeggio, both of them are typical Veronese pasta, the tortellini are even made with a part of boiled meat as its filling. 

The broth in this case is exactly what we created by cooking boiled meat. 

And as before mentioned, the same broth is also that with which we cook the Pearà sauce. This underlines how extremely important the preparation of the good broth. And then, after this broth-pasta dish, we would have Lesso e Pearà, the Pearà sauce accompanied with mixed boiled meat and bitter wild herbs.

This denotes how “Lesso e Pearà” does not indicate only a simple dish, but actually a certain type of lunch in its entirety.

The typical cuts used for boiled meat are cow tongue, cow shoulder and hen. The procedure for preparing the boiled meat is simple and the main ingredient is time. It takes a lot of time and it must be at a slow cooking speed, in fact the water must never boil but ‘quiver’.
Continuously removing the foam on the surface coming up during the cooking is another key point. 

The result of this process will be not only an extraordinary boiled meat to be served with your favorite sauces but also a tasty meat broth, which you can enjoy with pastas inside or be used as an essential ingredient of great recipes as Pearà.

With this we have given you some information on this typical Veronese dish, we assure you that it is really delicious and will appeal to everyone, young and old! See you next week for the recipe of “Lesso e Pearà”.

A yummy idea for your aperitif…

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Welcome back, today we will talk about another aspect of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and we will talk also about Italian traditions and food. 

Usually in Italy the new Extravirgin Olive Oil is ready around November, and many parties have always been organized in many different areas of the peninsula to celebrate new Olive Oil, furthermore, the new Olive Oil since it’s being prepared in autumn, just in time for Christmas gifts, is considered a very precious gift in our country, first of all for its meaning: Giving olive oil means giving great wealth, it is fruit of a long-lived plant, which symbolizes peace and harmony, and giving it means wishing this harmony; and then because it is a very tasty gift that is the basis of all Italian cuisine and it is able to enhance Italian food from north to south of the peninsula.
Although there are hundreds of dishes that could be prepared to taste the new oil, but I always suggest choosing the simpler ones.
Less flavors are mixed with EVO Oil and the more easily you will be able to taste it, feel its authentic flavor and understand if it is a quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

The recipe we recommend today is a Crostone based on ricotta cheese, dried tomatoes, pine nuts and of course Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

You will need some slices of bread to toast, they must be very thick, about 1-2cm, then some pine nuts to be toasted, some dried tomatoes to be cut into strips and finally the ricotta cheese which will be creamed with a pinch of salt, black pepper and your Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Once the slices of bread are toasted, pour a little EVO Oil over it, add some ricotta, put some salt and pepper, the dried tomatoes, garnish with a few toasted pine nuts and finish with a last drizzle of EVO Oil and enjoy!

It will be a delicious aperitif perfect to combine with an excellent glass of white wine, of course…Italian wine.

Let us know if you liked this recipe and if you will try it!

See you soon…

The Oil Mill – Il Giogo –

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Hi everyone, since last time we talked about extra virgin olive oil today we’ll like to introduce you to a little organic oil mill: the “Frantoio Il Giogo ”.
It’s a small family business, the family own many fields around the Valpolicella classic area and the Lake Garda, and all the entire processes, from the pruning to the harvest and to the olives milling are managed by the family.

The family:
Diego, Emanuela, Nicola and Sofia

The characteristics that distinguish the oil of Valpolicella are the chlorophyll, that aid the colour green-gold intense, the delicate perfume and the musky aftertaste with the sensation of lemon leaf. The ideal employment of oil is raw: a bit quantity brings out the taste of food, but it is good also to fry. In Valpolicella the olives are used only for oil, not to be eaten. The historic species are Grignano, Favarol and Trepp.
Favarol is high quality but has a productivity that varies from year to year.
This kind of olive needs to be properly fed and followed with an annual pruning. 

Then we have the Lake Garda varieties, the most famous and well known it’s the Casaliva, the huge amount of water of the lake mitigates the climate of the region so that on the shore of lake Garda, you can find a typical Mediterranean flora: palm trees, lemon trees and of course olive trees that have been cultivated here for thousands of years. The hills surrounding the lake are often spotted with the typical pale green color of olive tree leaves. The extra virgin olive oil produced here is mild and delicate, with a fruity and artichoke taste, ideal for dishes of local cuisine: risotto with lake fish, polenta with pike and marinated trout. The east coast of Lake Garda, because of the great olive oil production is also called olive trees riviera.

Nicola Tezza, the founder, during the milling process

Il Giogo was founded in 2016 by the idea of the householder Nicola Tezza, and during the years his sons, Diego and Sofia started a long process of studies to become oil panel (taster / judge of extra virgin olive oils) and for Diego to become also an oil maker. Nowadays the oil mill it’s still a family business managed by the parents Nicola and Emanuela and the two sons. As I mentioned before, the entire production it’s organic and in the last few years they achieved many goals including several gold and silver medals at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition which is the largest and most prestigious olive oil quality contest, this thanks to the excellent positions of the fields but even more thanks to the oil maker, which is the key figure in the production of high quality extra virgin olive oil. He is the one who, thanks to his experience, competence and passion, leads the oil mill. It is not the oil mill who shapes the oil maker , but the oil maker who shapes the oil mill, manages it at best, in order to produce excellence from the surrounding area. He has to recognizing the quality of the olives, the degree of ripeness and choose when it’s time to start the harvest, and his figure becomes even more complete because he has to guarantee his olive growers a correct management of the olive tree plantations; and how to manage the fruits from the moment of harvesting to storage and finally to delivery to the mill.

This is why at the Giogo the oil miller, Diego, is an oil master, because he is able to guarantee the life of an extra virgin olive oil of absolute quality at 360 °.

But this tiny farm can guarantee such good products and hospitality, thanks also to the hard work and expertise of the ladies of the family, especially the youngest, Sofia which with her sensibility and estrus make this family business so unique. And yes before we mentioned hospitality, because the Giogo it also has during the summer season, from June to September, a hospitality for campers and a beautiful pool where the guests can relax by the beach loungers and a bucolic cafe where enjoy local food.

The Oil Mill

So… what are you waiting for?! Next time that you’ll pass by Verona, go to visit this local small reality and immerse yourself in a bucolic italian dream… or visit their website, www.agricolailgiogo.com/it , and order their unique products.

See you next time with a delicious recipe…