[Sca-cooks] What is a Spanish Fritter?

[wheezul at canby.com]

> I have been reading some cookbooks from the 1500's (mainly rumpholt) and
> in
> there it refers to the Spanish fritter.  I have been looking for
> references
> for a fritter, but mainly the information that I am finding is that it is
> actually the enpanada.
>
> Is there a difference between the 2 and where else could I look for more
> accurate documentation?
>
> Thank you-
>
> Carres

Oh goodie!  I have been wanting to discuss the word 'krapfen' which we
generally translate as fritter into English.  It's one of those words that
has multiple meanings now, and I have been collecting data to do a cross
comparison of all the kinds of variants.  They can be a fried fritter with
or without leavening, a crepe, a thin crusted fried filled pie made with
rolled out dough and further can be a type of ravioli or dumpling.  (Note
the similarities between rapf [raf]and ravioli [rav]). I haven't seen all
of the variants known, but usually a filling is implied with a krapfen.

I don't know what a Spanish fritter is, but since Rumpolt tells that the
stuffing can be prepared in a variety of ways - as a regular krapfen, and
one that is fried in butter as well as the Spanish variety, I wonder if it
is a kind of ravioli, but I am only broadly guessing.

Katherine
who is still giggling at the obscene meaning of krapfen (think nut filled
fried dough balls...)