Can an identical dish have two different names, albeit prepared in the same way with the same ingredients? The answer is to be found in the gnocco fritto emiliano (so called in the areas of Reggio Emilia and Modena), identified in Parma and its surroundings with the name of torta fritta (fried cake).
But where are the differences?
The origins are lost in the mists of time when the Lombards, following the fall of the Roman Empire, conquered the lands of Emilia. The Longobard culinary customs provided for a wide use of lard, the same in which they began to fry the typical dish of Emilia.
At the beginning was the gnocco, which means a focaccia baked in the oven, which was added precisely the term fried, becoming daily food farmer until the ’60s and arriving to our days thanks to family tradition.
If, however, in the rest of Emilia is recognized by the nickname of Gnocco Fritto, in Parma the terminology, not the preparation and taste, is different. Gnocco is transformed into a Torta Fritta (Fried Cake). This is because on Parma’s tables at the beginning when it was tasted, it was common practice to cover it with a sprinkling of sugar and eat it at the end of the meal as a dessert, thus inflicting on the term dumpling ousted from torta (cake). Later, in Parma, too, they began to taste it accompanied by cold cuts and cheeses typical of the area, and although it was increasingly rarely tasted as a dessert, it remained the original name.
Today it is impossible not to find it in any restaurant or trattoria to open the dances before lunch or dinner.
Gnocco Fritto or Torta Fritta: you can call them what you want, but you can not stop to taste them!