To celebrate the conclusion of this year's San Gennaro Feast, as well as welcome the beginning of the Fall season, I thought I'd bid one last farewell to the foods of the summertime by extolling the virtues of a particular street food that remains in a class by itself when it comes to sumptuously satisfyingly guilt-inducing goodies. They're hot - they're crispy - and yet they're soft all at the same time. They're a bit weird looking, insanely delicious, and easy to overeat. I'm talking about the wonderful balls of doughy deliciousness known as Zeppole.
That's pronounced "ZAY-puhls" to us Italians, but over the years I've come to terms with the fact that there are those who will always say "ZEHP-oleez" (and "Man-uh-CODDY", and worst of all - "Guh-NOCKI"). But we'll deal with those people another time.
Thankfully, unlike these perplexing phonetics, zeppole are really quite simple. These baseball-sized globes of gastronomic greatness are created when gobs of sticky, wet dough are dropped in hot oil and rotated constantly until equally golden brown on all sides. (above) Once out of the oil, they're either left to cool for later consumption, or for those who know what they're doing and share my zeppole zeal, are swiftly escorted to a traditional brown paper bag and clobbered with a heaping scoop of powdered sugar. From here, I then proceed to shake the bag vigorously for about 15 seconds to make sure everybody gets an even share of sweetness.
And then, of course. I EAT THEM.
From rudimentary chunk of yeasty dough, to a cluster of sweet, golden-browned perfection, no more than 3 minutes pass before you're sinking your teeth into one of these dastardly doughy debutantes. In the blink of an eye you're eagerly tearing open this piping hot paper bag to unveil an evenly adorned cluster of crusty blobs of sweetness that are crunchy on the outside, and buttery soft on the inside. (below)
So next time you find yourself staring into a hot-to-the touch brown bag of these golden nuggets of Naples, standing on the sidewalk, hunched over a garbage, covered in powdered sugar, I am confident your first tongue-burning bite will cause you not to cringe, nor gasp, but instead, cry out a big whelping, "Zeppole!"
It hasn't failed me yet.
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