Tortones

I’m not the only person in my family who loves pastry.  I come by it honestly.  We all do.

Today, which is my little sister’s 30th birthday (Happy Birthday Cath!), my mom decided to do something special – I mean really special.  She decided to make tortones.

For those of you who aren’t in my family, here’s what a tortone is:  Prunes in fried pie dough.  Yummy.

This is something that came from my Great Grandmother Harame who came to the US directly from France.  I remember playing the piano for her in her house.  I remember her sitting next to me and playing that upright piano.  She would write sheet music with the words of songs from France and those of us who played piano would try to learn.  Her hands were so little that she couldn’t reach a full octave, but she so enjoyed playing that it was a delight to watch.

Today when we were making the tortones, Mom pulled out a hand-written recipe and I teared up as I saw Grandma Harame’s handwriting, the same as it was on the sheet music, friendly and instructive.

It’s full of helpful hints like “try to make it your own” and “good luck with your tortones.”  Actually, as I’m sitting here reading the recipe, I’m realizing that I’ve misspelled “tortone” my entire life.  Grandma’s letter says “tourton” as though that is the plural!  Wonderful!  Well, I’ll probably continue calling them “tortones” anyway, the way her name changed from Haramis to Harame when she and her Greek husband came to the US.

So, here are some pictures of the tortones in process and finished:

We stewed the prunes, placed them in the dough like raviolis, and deep fried them (I swear this might be the one reason to own a deep fryer).

You can sprinkle with sugar or just shove them in your mouth while they’re scalding hot.  Sooooo good.

Sidenote, my family just realized what I was blogging about and nearly had a heart attack when they realized I was giving out the recipe.  Lucky for you I’m a fan of open-source recipes.  So, if you can read Grandma Harame’s writing, and come up with a functioning recipe, let me know.  They’re delicious.