Strangolapreti (Priest-stranglers)

[Orion Montoya]

Aha, so strangolapreti are "fist-sized dumplings", making them false
friends with strozzapreti, which gets over 4 times as many googits,
and which I've seen on many New York menus.  The regional (and,
thinly, the culinary) differences among strozzapreti, strangolapreti,
strangozzi and stringozzi are elaborated and mapped nicely in "A
Geography of Italian Pasta":
http://geography.fullerton.edu/550/cultural/geography%20of%20pasta.pdf

My received etymythology for strozzapreti has always been that the
thick noodles resemble a rolled up or twisted towel, such as one might
use to strangle a priest.  But this geographer has put them in a
continuum with these bigger strangolapreti (which don't resemble
anything useful for quiet assassination), and so complicated my
understanding of strozzapreti.  So I now prefer the towel/strangling
story the way I also prefer Wilson's account of "up tight" -- a better
story, a plausible one I'd like to be true, but one about which I have
lingering doubts.

Some of Barry's strangolapreti hits appear to be describing
strozzapreti, too, and make me wonder whether the less englishable
"strozza-" is being forsaken, at times, for the immediately
comprehensible "strangola-", for both cuts of pasta.

Ooh, lunchtime.

O.