Carnevale
Although I was aware of the Venice carnival, I was not aware of its connection to Lent or the fact that not only was this an Italian wide festival, but also quite a lot of the rest of Europe too. For around two weeks, certainly in Italy, there are Carnevale events culminating in a parade of some kind on Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday as it is known in other places e.g. Mardi Gras in Spanish, Martedì Grosso in Italian. I had noticed carnival masks and coloured streamers going up in shops, seen signs for Carnevale as well as event specific delicacies in the Pasticceria windows. However, I was not sure what the celebration was for as it seemed too early for Easter. I asked someone who told me it was the festival before Lent. This information turned our Shrove Tuesday into the limpest of pancakes. WARNING! This is my understanding of Carnevale almost certainly containing wild inaccuracies, baseless assumptions and misunderstandings. Anyway, Carnevale is understood to be from the Italian word for meat Carne and vale which means without. This makes sense as a description for Lent or any other type of fasting. The English word Carnival is derived from this. There is something reassuringly human about that fact that around the world, in all cultures, any period of organised fast start and end with a bit of gluttony.
We had looked online and Bologna was holding its Carnevale dei Bambini (Carnival for children) parade on Sunday at 2.30, which was fortunate as Al had the day off. We decided to go and headed out with a plan to grab a slice of pizza or a piadina to eat while watching the parade. When we arrived, we noticed that there was a lot of confetti and streamers on the ground and we worried that we had somehow missed it. We walked up to where the parade was supposed to be and although there were loads of families with dressed up kids walking around no one seemed to be massing for an event or waiting for one or getting a good spot or any of the usual signs of imminent events happening. We walked the length of the road and at 2.15, having seen no sign of parade or parade watchers, we decided we must have made a mistake about the time and decided to get some lunch.
Lunch in the Mercato Delle erbe – Polpette e Crescentine
It can be difficult to get lunch after 2.00pm because many restaurants close at 3 or don’t open on Sundays. I had a mild cold so I was keen to sit down if we weren’t going to get a parade. We were close to Mercato Delle Erbe (The herb market). This usually has vegetable stalls in the centre with cafes, shops and bars around the edge. Because the market itself and many of the restaurants do not open on Sundays, those that do can extend into the unused space of neighbouring restaurants for the day.
Polpette e Crescentine is one such restaurant that doubles in size on a Sunday. It is often very busy so you might want to think about booking, which you can do through their website on this link. The staff are very friendly and the menu is available in English if you need that kind of thing. The menu also lists their suppliers and the traditional nature of the food. For the uninitiated Polpette (meatballs) and Crescentine (small roughly square bread pieces fried so they puff up and can be stuffed) are local specialities.
Affettati Miste e Crescentine 
Close up of Crescentine
We ate here when we were newly arrived in Bologna and they introduced us to the delights of Friggione a local dish of tomato and onions that is usually served at room temperature. I’m not one for side dishes but I will make an exception for this, it is fabulous. More recently we had our first Crescentine here which for some reason we had not eaten before, although they are Bolognese. We had decided to start with a selection of local cooked and cured meats called Affettati misti (mixed slices) and to have the Crescentine with it. A colander of freshly fried Crescentine arrived with our meats and the idea is you break into the puffs and fill them with bits of meat, refolding them into bite sized pieces. They smell and taste similar to a savoury doughnut and were a delicious accompaniment. It was a fantastic discovery and something you probably can’t enjoy outside Bologna.
AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN and – MamBO temporary exhibition
After lunch, and disappointed that we had missed the parade, we went to an exhibition we wanted to see. This temporary exhibition is at the Bologna Museum of Modern Art (Mambo) and was part of Bologna Art Week, which I have written about previously. It was curated from the work of multiple international artists, but by far the stand out piece for me was “Bonjour 2015” by Ragnar Kjartansson. I was about to describe it and then I remembered I have the power of photos so here it is.
Yes, those are two real life people in the “set” who perform the same set of actions on a five-minute circuit. It is both beautiful and terrifyingly nihilistic at the same time. You are able to walk around the whole set, so the “performers” can be seen at all times. I have to be honest I admired their commitment to the performance although I was distracted by wondering how many hours they performed this for.
When we left the museum, we were disappointed to see even more confetti and streamers littering the place and it became clear that we had missed the Carnevale festivities for a second time in one day! I thought I might try and catch the Fat Tuesday events before work instead but this was not to be as unfortunately, even the lavish festivities of the Venice Carnevale were cancelled due to the sudden spread into Italy of the Corona Virus. Although Venice itself had no cases, it was deemed wise to avoid mass gatherings of people. The central and regional Italian governments took a robust approach to containment with Emilia Romagna, where Bologna is situated, deciding to close all schools, museums, churches and cinemas for a week as a precaution. This meant that there was no Carnevale parade on Fat Tuesday and MamBO, along with other museums, galleries and cinemas, was closed to the public too although they have made the exhibition available on a streamed service.