This month, I have once again the honor, together with six other bloggers, of being a judge in a challenge that has a theme suited to today, April Fool's Day. All the details of the challenge are explained on this page, so I won't repeat them here. The page also has the list of judges. You have until Monday, April 30th to submit your entry according to the specifications laid out on the page referenced above. We are looking forward to reading about interesting variations on the theme of "fooling" someone at the table. As a judge, I won't participate, but I will soon present a recipe to complement the challenge.
As you can see from the title of this post, in Italy we don't have a special name for the day — we call it simply primo Aprile, April 1st — but for what happens during the day: pesce d'Aprile is a trick played upon someone. The exclamation Pesce d'Aprile! is how the person learns that what happened to him/her is a joke.
The traditional pesce d'Aprile is a paper cutout of a fish that is attached with some tape to the shoulders of someone, who remains unaware until other people's laughter (risate) make him/her suspect something's afoot.
It's been a long time since I last participated in the merry pranks of April Fool's Day, so I am glad to be involved in a food-themed version of it. My contribution will be up soon. In the meantime, think about a way of making your guests believe they will be eating something, while the dish is made of something completely different.
Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:
or launch the pesce d'Aprile audio file [mp3].
[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]