Olive ascolane

Every Christmas and Easter, my mother makes olive ascolane. It's labour-intensive to make, but this regional appetizer is one of the most delicious things you could imagine.

Picture it: three kinds of meat are delicately sauteed and then shaped into balls, which are then wrapped round with the flesh of a pitted green olive.

The ball is then breaded and deep-fried. [drool] The key is to eat them hot. In the past, my brother and I used to stand on either side of my mother as she did the deep frying, ready to pluck the olives from the strainer as soon as humanly possible.

Trust me, having burnt fingers was nothing compared to the sensation of juicy olive and meat melting in your mouth.

As a mostly-vegetarian since 2007, I have become immune to my mother's many meaty treats, but there is something irresistible about these morsels. So every Christmas and every Easter, I shove my meaty objections to the back of my mind and indulge in a few olive ascolane.

If only they weren't so delicious.... Did I mention that they're deep fried?