Respondents worked out confusing phrases together, so that the proposed “check to make sure it rises” was better understood to mean “check to be sure the heat isn’t too high.” One translator thought that “put the eyes and the tongue” must have been figurative, to look and taste for doneness, but another points out that those are decorating instructions - to literally place the eyes and tongue into the snake! Some think this recipe is only a filling to be used with an unrecorded pastry, while others say to just press the almond flour dough into shape and top with beaten egg whites. The conversation is a real lesson in cooperative problem-solving. Native Umbrian r/middlemist-camellia was able to offer prep and ingredient details. One respondent refined some of the details with knowledge of the Umbrian dialect in particular. Redditor r/weriov provided the first translation of the handwritten Italian recipe. Other Reddit users were able to translate the whole recipe into English, listing eggs, sugar, lemon and cocoa in addition to almonds. Though the earliest use of this almond pastry was limited to Saint Anatolia’s feast day on July 10, Serpentone is now made at other special holidays as well, like Christmas or Passover. Different versions of the recipe available online report it to date back to about 400 A.D., when it was created to commemorate Saint Anatolia’s miraculous escape from a serpent-based execution. It turns out that serpentone alle mandorle is not just an old recipe, but a very old recipe.

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