Pizzelle

The story

In the Abruzzo region, pizzelle are rarely made from a written recipe. They are made by Grandma's feel: she knows exactly how long to hold the iron over the fire, or how many seconds to count on a modern electric one, so that the batter of eggs, sugar, flour and anise or vanilla turns out crisp and not soft. The iron, often passed from generation to generation as a family heirloom, is engraved with designs that imprint on the thin batter: floral patterns, geometric shapes, sometimes even the family's initials. Although elsewhere in central Italy they are also called "ferratelle" or "neole," the Abruzzese version is especially tied to the grandmother as keeper of the recipe. They are baked for Christmas, Easter, birthdays, even an ordinary summer morning, always in the same quantity, enough to feed the whole family that gathers around the smell of hot iron. For immigrant families from Abruzzo, an old, often rusty iron carried across the ocean is one of the most frequently mentioned heirlooms in the kitchen.