Caragnoli

Caragnoli come from the peasant kitchen of the basso Molise, tied above all to Termoli and its hinterland, and are counted among the region's traditional food products (PAT). They are made by the women in the days before Christmas, each family keeping its own recipe, and they and the rose-shaped rosacatarre share one dough and differ only in the twist. The dialect name shifts from village to village, softening to 'caragnol', and a tray of them was kept out through the holidays to make the rounds of the house. They sit in a long Molisan line of fried, honey-drenched festive sweets alongside scarpelle, mostaccioli and cicerchiata.

A dry, shattering crunch that gives way at once, the fried dough almost weightless inside its hollow coils. The hot honey sets to a thin, glossy, sticky film that clings to the ridges, sweet and floral, and a last dusting of sugar catches on the lips. Light rather than rich, they are gone in two bites.

Rolling the dough paper-thin and winding it around the rod gives the fritter a hollow core and a huge surface, so in the hot oil the surface water flashes to steam almost at once; the outward rush of steam puffs and crisps the spiral and keeps the oil from soaking in, and in barely thirty seconds the egg proteins and the flour's gluten set the shape hard. The brief bath in honey, thinned by heat to a free-flowing syrup, coats the ridges in a film that cools to a glassy, hygroscopic glaze; because honey draws water from the air, the coils are eaten at once, before that glaze pulls in moisture and softens the crunch.