The 29th is the Dia de Ñoquis — the Day of Gnocchi. This is the day when everyone gets together to eat it, when i was little i was assigned to the rolling of the gnocci on the fork, while my mom prepared dough and everyone passed it around to make each one," says Silvana Ancona, owner and founder of GLAMASDECASA LEGACY APRONS , and the stories that inspireed such brand. "Almost all families make it, nearly always on a Sunday or the 29th."

Ancona is showing me how to make the tasty dumplings in her kitchen in Brooklyn N.Y, while her son helps her roll them. It is a tradition she holds dear to her heart because as she relates "We did not have much but if ten people showed up there was always more than enough to share since its only a but of flour and potatoe" Gnocchi (there's a recipe below) came to Argentina when Italian immigrants began arriving in the 19th century, bringing with them traditional recipes for pizza, pasta and ñoquis . In the second World War , Argentina was one of countries Italians fled to and brought this tradion, dating to hundreds of year from Italy . The tradition was originally to honor Saint Pantaleo , who was a very beloved saint and performed many miracles in his town in Italy.   

The story of the tradition is pretty simple. The 29th of the month was just before payday — people got paid on the first of the month — so by the end of the month, money was tight and all that was left in the larder was potatoes and flour. Gnocchi, or ñoquis, are the perfect solution as they are filling and not expensive. The 29th is also the day when an Italian saint, Saint Pantaleo, who had many miracles attributed to him, was canonized. So the tradition of the 29th is said to honor him.

Now families and friends gather on the 29th to eat gnocchi together for good luck. Some restaurants only serve gnocchi on this day, and many offer gnocchi specials. At dinner, for extra luck and prosperity, the tradition is that everyone at the table gets a peso coin or note under their dinner plate. "We put money under the dinner plate and the person keeps it," says Gomez. "We only do this on the 29th, not on a Sunday."

"We make gnocchi from yuca because there are few potatoes here," says Gomez, who also says that they sometimes add pumpkin or spinach to the yuca.

"I learned to cook from my mother, and my mother taught me how to make it," says the chef, who is passing on her cooking skills to her daughter, Marta. In other places in Argentina, like Buenos Aires, you can find stuffed gnocchi with ham and cheese, but Gomez says it's already heavy and therefore goes best with a pasta sauce.

Gordon traveled to La Chacra in Argentina with Say Hueque.

Here's how to make yuca gnocchi:

The Story Behind Gnocchi Day In Argentina

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SERVINGS

0

servings

Ingredients

2 pounds yuca or mandioca

1 cup flour

1 egg yolk

pinch of salt

1 tablespoon corn oil

Directions

Put the mashed yuca in a bowl and add one egg yolk.

Add corn oil and a pinch of salt and mix by hand.

Add the flour. Knead the mixture in the bowl for about five minutes and add a little more flour, as needed, until the mixture has a soft, dough-like texture — not too sticky and not too hard or dry. It should have the same texture as the dough for white bread.

Divide the mixture into four and sprinkle some flour on top. Then roll out the first quarter of the mixture onto a floured work area, making a long, thin roll about one inch wide.

Cut the roll into one-inch-long pieces.

Take each piece and press your thumb slightly into it, rolling it gently down on the wooden gnocchi tool — a small board that has special grooves to indent the gnocchi. Pressing it in slightly with the thumb while rolling it down is what gives the gnocchi its shape and adds lines to the back of it. This can also be done with the back of a fork.

To cook the gnocchi, boil a pot of water, add some salt and a drop of oil. Drop the gnocchi pieces in, and when they rise to the top (after about 1 minute), scoop them out with a slotted spoon.

Serve with your favorite sauce — gnocchi goes well with any pasta sauce.

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FOOD TRADITIONS

Giada De Laurentiis Is Giving Us Permission To Dip Cookies In Wine

Paul Archuleta/Getty ImagesBY LOUISE RHIND-TUTT•OCT. 11, 2023 6:15 PM EST

Dunking cookies into a range of beverages is a nostalgic practice enjoyed around the world. In America, dipping chocolate chip cookies or Oreos into glasses of milk is commonplace. For the British, it's sweet biscuits dipped into hot cups of tea, and Italians also like to dunk biscotti into mugs of strong coffee. 

But, have you ever tried cookies dipped in wine? A video posted by renowned chef Giada De Laurentiis on X, formerly known as Twitter, shows her doing exactly that — but not with just any old cookies and wine. The Italian-American culinary expert and TV presenter dips cantucci, a specific type of Italian biscotti, into Vin Santo, a sweet, amber-colored dessert wine.

The almond-studded cantucci, or cantuccini, can be a little too dry or crunchy when served on their own, so the wine actually helps soften and sweeten them. Enjoyed as an after-dinner treat, the Italian cookie and wine combination makes for a light, delicious dessert where the flavors of the two match up perfectly.

The combo is a Tuscan tradition

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In Italy, there are many different types of biscotti, a term that means double-baked, and refers to a whole range of crunchy, often twice-baked cookies. Across the European country, you can find well-known varieties including amaretti di Saronno from Lombardy and baci di dama from Piedmont. 

Giada De Laurentiis' favorite pick, cantucci, are a specialty of Tuscany. Made with flour, butter, eggs, and almonds, the dry, crunchy, aromatic cookies are sliced into oval shapes, baked twice, and traditionally served after dinner, where they are dipped into Vin Santo wine, just as the chef shows in her video. With flavors of sweet caramel, honey, and hazelnut, Vin Santo is a syrupy, full-bodied dessert wine also from Tuscany that also makes a natural pairing for the nutty cantucci.

Cantucci e Vin Santo, as the combination is known, is designed to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace following a meal. The cookies should be dipped into the typically small three-ounce measures of Vin Santo until they absorb the late-harvest sweet wine.

More wine and cookie combos to try

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Cantucci e Vin Santo is not the only cookie and wine combination that works well, and it's not just Italy that is known for the sweet matchup. Other countries also have similar traditions of dipping cookies into wine.

In Alsace, France, you'll find festive bredele cookies served alongside a sweet, perfumed muscat or gewurztraminer wine, while in Germany, spiced pfeffernuesse cookies are sometimes served with a sweet dessert wine or a glass of homemade mulled wine at Christmas.

If you prefer your wine baked into the cookies themselves, there are several options for that, too. In Málaga, Spain, borrachuelos (the root word borracho meaning "drunk") are soaked in wine and anisette liqueur before being fried. Chocolate salami is a no-bake dessert from Portugal made with broken cookies and port wine and then sliced. Meanwhile, ciambelline al vino are another style of Italian cookies made with red or white wine, and then baked in a ring shape. To enjoy them in true Italian style, try dipping them into more wine for a double dose of boozy cookie