The Cooking and Cuisine of Sicily

[mrbigjas]

Wild asparagus is the best EVER.

on sunday at a fancy brunch here in philadelphia, we had gnocchi with guanciale and wild asparagus. not specifically sicilian, but damn good.

this week i made green beans in sort of a caponata-esque preparation, with the sultanas and pine nuts and vinegar and sugar and herbs and oil and cinnamon and whatnot. i could have sworn i read this as a recipe somewhere in one of my books or on the web, but i can't find it anywhere. maybe i'm crazy. but i was thinking of you guys.

[acevola]

Sicily for me is home....

recent discoveries in wine and food here

http://acevola.blogspot.com/2006/07/sardegna-sicilia-pantelleria-5wg.html

and here....

http://acevola.blogspot.com/2006/05/sicily-memories-dreams-reflections.html

Buon Viaggio

Alfonso Cevola

On the Wine Trail in Italy

http://acevola.blogspot.com/

[Andrew Fenton]

Welcome, Alfonso! Great blog. (I've had that Rapitala syrah, by the way. It's great.)

[Andrew Fenton]

this week i made green beans in sort of a caponata-esque preparation, with the sultanas and pine nuts and vinegar and sugar and herbs and oil and cinnamon and whatnot.  i could have sworn i read this as a recipe somewhere in one of my books or on the web, but i can't find it anywhere.  maybe i'm crazy.  but i was thinking of you guys.

Maybe you just sorta absorbed the caponata mood; those are pretty standard ingredients for a sweet and sour caponata, a la the Batali's. (I prefer the more acidic, olivey kind, but that's me.)

Mind you, I'm not saying you aren't crazy...

Edited July 11, 2006 by Andrew Fenton (log)

[FoodMan]

Thanks for the picture Pedie, looks so much like so many areas in the town I grew up in in Lebanon (see my signature). Although I am sure you meant "as high as 110 F" not 110C

[pedie]

Although I am sure you meant "as high as 110 F" not 110C

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Absolutely...thanks for catching that!

When the sirrocco blows it is hot enough without me adding to it by misinformation!

[Andrew Fenton]

What a fantastic goal.  I suppose it is true of much of Italy, but when you get into the country and the small comuni of Sicily, you can really experience the reality of living in an agricultural community that holds fast to tradition.  The meals are prepared with what is in season and much of the conversation is of the weather and its effect on the crops.  These are not large farms.  Each family has an "orto", a kitchen garden that grows most of the produce for their own table.  It is amazing to me how they produce so abundantly in hillsides steeply terraced in rocky limestone.  I receive emails talking about the crops...their recent extreme heat (as high as 110 C) is causing the little olives to dry and drop to the ground so the local harvest will be small this year, reducing the amount of oil each family will produce from their family groves.  Here is a picture of an orto in Ferla, near my cousin's house.

Hey, I know that area! Not Ferla exactly, but that limestone plateau above Syracuse. This spring I wasn't far away, in Pantalica (the rockingest town of all Sicily, being the namesake of both Pantera and Metallica). It's a gorgeous area, and your photo is very evocative of the really dramatic landscape of that part of Sicily. I can't imagine trying to do agricultural work on those hills, but people have been doing it for a long, long time, since at least the Bronze Age.

(I've been meaning to write up something about Pantalica for a long time now, and you've inspired me to go ahead and do it. Thanks!)

[Ling]

Ling:  Forgive me for being the unhired caterer with all the unsolicited advice.  It's YOUR dinner and they're your new friends.

However, here's another suggestion:  scrap the arancini (size of clementines).

Panelle (the chickpea fritters) together with the capanata.*  I've looked at the recipe again.  They are deep-fried and crisp and warm, so it would be a great contrast to the room temp capanata (please make it at least a day ahead; as in virtually anything with eggplant, best that way)

In Palermo, says Wright, the fritters are used as sandwich stuffers, squeezed with lemon.  I say, use THEM as the bread and make little round sandwiches with capanata filling.

Without the arancini, pasta or rice wouldn't be redundant.  You'd have more alternatives such as Elie's really good suggestion with baked cauliflower pasta...even better if you can get the green or purple type (given next suggestion).  I kind of like Elie's pistachio pesto with the fresh herbs. I am addicted to pistachios.  But there are lots of different ways tomatoes are stuffed.  And there's a fabulous dish called the Priests' Mistresses' Potatoes that I intend to make a little later when tomato season is in full swing.  (Good with eggplant rolls, but your capanata should not be missed.)  Order of these two is up to you, though pasta's usually first.

THEN your fennel and orange salad. Nice refresher, especially if you do a heavy pasta.

THEN your incredibly decadent dessert. (You know, there's a sweet version of arancine with ricotta and chocolate.  And the Sicilians do love their gelato.)

*Sandwiches sound like one dish vs. two?  Serve a green contorno next to them such as sweet & sour zucchini with golden raisins.  Scrap the escarole idea since I recall making Hazan's escarole pie in which the anchovies REALLY made the dish; the recipe isn't vegetarian and might be blah without the fish.  OR just a few arancini the size of jumbo gum balls with drinks first.

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Thanks for all your advice! I especially like the idea of the cauliflower fritters and caponata on the same plate. Did I miss the link to the recipe? Or could you give me a rough recipe?

Another thing--we invited another (meat-eating ) couple to our dinner since the vegetarians are in LA this weekend.

So, since we're in Seattle, I figure a salumi platter from Armandino's famed Salumi is in order. Then the cauliflower fritters and caponata. We have to do arancini because Henry's really looking forward to that... Then we'll do the salad, and then the dessert. I want to keep the meal relatively light (well, except for the cassata) because we're going to have a really heavy day of eating the next day. Actually, the cassata might be iffy because I really hate commercial candied fruit...I guess I can candy my own citrus peel though.

[hhlodesign]

Just catching up on what I was going to help cook on Friday

NO PONTORMO!!! You will not get rid of my arancini!! What is the traditional arancini filling? The ones I got from the corner trattoria in Florence seemed to be filled with leftover risotto from the night before.

I love the idea of fennel orange salad. I think I might be able to find sicilian blood oranges in the market right now!

I gotta try the Priest's Mistress Potatoes for the name alone!

What a great thread, I have to drop by more often!

Sorry for the overuse of excamation points!

[Andrew Fenton]

What is the traditional arancini filling? The ones I got from the corner trattoria in Florence seemed to be filled with leftover risotto from the night before.

Leftover risotto is the medium. They're usually filled with ragu, peas, prosciutto: that kinda thing...

[Kevin72]

Pantalica (the rockingest town of all Sicily, being the namesake of both Pantera and Metallica). 

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Heh.

[Claudia Greco]

I'm glad to know that it's native to Sicily, too. All the more reason for me to move to Syracuse. Seriously, I'm going to do it.

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Here is a picture of an orto in Ferla, near my cousin's house.

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Man, what an orto! Clinging to the hillside, right above the road! Reminds me of the terraced rice paddies in Nepal, where every bit of arable land was cultivated, no matter how precariously perched on a hill or mountain. And the layers upon layers of the same paddies in Hong Kong, where I was raised. Amazing what human resourcefulness and ingenuity is born out of need!

[divina]

checking in!

am on vacationa and am heading down to Puglia... but hurt my back..

so tomorrow I will find my recipes form Sicily I have done and documented..

Watermelon granita..with chocolate chip seeds.

from the street market Ballero' in Palermo last winter, green oinions wrapped in pancetta and grilled!!!

I just bought a can of the sardine topping.. will fotograph it.. it is fun!

My little Sicilian mamma in the market makes Friscededdu ( she can't spell it either) itis a fabulous fried savory french toast sort of thing, made traditionally from old breadcrumbs, eggs mint and pecorino! ?Yummy!!!

and the deconstructed Cannolo was my favorite at Antica Foccaceria San FRancesco in Palermo...

no spleen sandwiches anyone!

We had the Panelle fried and served as sandwich filling, but I like the Tuscan Cecina.. oven baked better. same idea.

[Pontormo]

NO PONTORMO!!! You will not get rid of my arancini!!   

I gotta try the Priest's Mistress Potatoes for the name alone!

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Enrico, calma, calma! I didn't know.

* * *

Are there any threads devoted to the amazing names of Italian dishes? Sicily's seem to be particularly rich in both historical/cultural information and playful vulgarities, usually at the expense of the Church or body parts.

Kevin's food blog last year includes one that I'll omit below, inviting you to look for the link at the beginning of this thread and see for yourself. Clifford Wright often comments on the names for the following among others:

Sciatre e Matre: Eggplant sandwich resembling buttocks; the expression also means "Way?!"

Cugghiune dell' Ortolano: stuffed baby eggplant, apparently evocative of the farmhand's testicles

Olio Santo: Cardamom flavored EVOO; holy oil

Riso con gli Angeli: Rice with angels; actually squid, mussels & shrimp

Pasta a Vento Barba di San Benedetto: Dessert pasta named after Saint Benedict's beard

Spaghetti al Mataroccu: Silly Spaghetti

Lingue di Passero: Sparrow tongues; name for tagliatelle

Nidi di scuma: Another dessert pasta called nests of foam upon the waves of the sea

Spaghetti alla Sala Murisca Taratata: Commemorating medieval battle between Emir Ibn al-Hawwas & Norman Count Roger I; others are called "alla Saracena" or share names with North African countries, e.g. Chachichouka, a vegetarian dish of vegetables and eggs.

Edited July 13, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Andrew Fenton]

Okay, last night's dinner featured a Syracusan-style fish soup. This isn't as elaborate or rich as some other versions (I have a recipe for a Catanese soup that includes olives and tomato paste- and Campanian fish soups are a whole other story as well). It's built on a fish broth (heads, shells, white wine) and three kinds of fish: branzino, red snapper and shrimp. And that's close to it: some onion and a little garlic, some tomato and celery, all resting on a slice of toasted bread:

(The recipe comes from Gosetti, but Clifford Wright has a very similar recipe as well.) It's a good summer soup, refreshing and satisfying. The soup cooks at a relatively low temperature (40 minutes at 350 degrees in the oven) so the fish is cooked, but the vegetables still have some texture to them.

The only recommendation I'd make about this soup is to avoid leftovers. You know how lots of Ideally,soups are better the next day? This is not one of them.

For dessert, we had cannoli. I confess, I didn't make these: but one of the perks of living in Philadelphia is ready access to cannoli that are as good as anything I ate in Sicily. And I don't have to deep fry them. That's a good thing; for me, deep frying always results in clouds of black smoke, terrified cats, terrified me, alarms going off, and it all ends in tears...

Here's the photo:

(For best results, please put on your 3-D glasses).

To drink was a bottle of 2005 Colosi bianco from Messina. Not a great wine, but it was fine, and geographically appropriate...

[pedie]

I'd like to offer a couple of other cookbook suggestions.

One we purchased on one of our trips. It is the book Sicilian Cookery by Eufemia Azzolina Pupella, ISBN:88-8029-596-9, that is for sale at all the souvenier kiosks throughout the island. It is the English language version. The recipes are authentic and each recipe has a slick colored picture of the finished dish. It has 212 recipes and is a great resource.

The second is a book that features food, wine and travel in southern Italy...south of Rome, including Sicily, entitled "Salute!" by Gail & Kevin Donovan and Simon Griffiths. It is the result of a trip taken in 1999 by two restaurateurs, a chef and a photographer and in addition to great recipes, has a day-by-day account of the trip and fantastic photography of people, places and foods. ISBN: 1-57145-685-6.

Mangia bene!

[hathor]

Well, I'm really late this month. Mi dispiace!

Here was the question that was rattling around in my brain while I did some research on Sicily: Why did Sardinia view outsiders with suspicion and dread, an island proud to be isolated and alone, while Sicily absorbed and assimilated so much from their invaders?

By virtue of its position in the Mediterranean, it was a natural crossroads of cultures. The original, indigenous tribes of Sicily were known as the Elymians, Sicani and the Sicili or Sicels. Most of what is know about these tribes comes from the Greeks, who arrived on the east coast of Sicily in the 8th century BC. Here is a critical difference, the Greeks did not come as conquerors, they came as colonizers. They brought with them agricultural techniques that would introduce the islanders to whole grain and refined flours that would be use for the precursor of focaccia. (Now this is entirely debatable as other sources cite the Romans as introducing wheat.) The Greeks are credited with planting the Malvasia and Moscato vines that are still prevalent in Sicilian wines. There is also evidence that the Greeks used the snow on Mount Etna for making iced desserts using honey and fruits. During this period, it was already possible to eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables such as currants, table grapes, apples, pomegranates, pears, figs, fava beans, artichokes, cardoons and of course, olives.

Siracusa or Syracuse became the largest Greek city in all of Magna Grecia and the cuisine of the area naturally divided into the elaborate presentations made for the wealthy class and the rustic cooking of the poor. Eventually, the Greeks would come into conflict with the Carthaginian city of Palermo, on the south west side of the island, which led to the rise of the renegade gangs of Mamertines, who antognised both the Greeks and the Carthaginians. The Mamertines tried to play both sides, and wound up through convoluted diplomacy, inviting the help of the Roman Empire. This is history in very, very broad strokes, it was a long and complicated road with a few Punic Wars thrown in, but eventually Sicily fell under the rule of the Roman Empire by the 3rd century BC, where it remained for six centuries.

The Romans were not as beneficent as the Greeks. They used and abused the island as its bread basket. Rome and its cuisine became more influenced by Sicilian ingredients and cooking, than the reverse. Although there is records of very extravagant goose preparations made for the Romans.

Next up were the Vandals (nice name), then came the Ostrogothics who brought long black leather dresses and pierced eyebrows into fashion (just checking to see if you are awake). The next culinary footnote, is the Byzantines who arrive in 535 and bring with them a taste for agrodolce (sweet-sour).

Stay with me. We’re getting to the good part, where the Arabs or Saracens come in and really spice up the table. The Arabs brought with them methods of irrigation for vegetables that lead to many more varieties being available. The Arabs introduce Sicily to: almonds, pistachios, asparagus, peaches, apricots, sugar, melons, saffron, more rice, more grape varieties, many varieties of lemons and oranges, nutmeg, cloves, pepper, cinnamon, and quite possibly, pasta. Clearly, the whole history of pasta is completely unclear, and I’m not touching this one. The Arabic influence elevated Sicilian cooking to a fine art level. With the ability to create refined sugar, the whole art of pastry making as we know it today, was born. The Arab influence on Sicilian cooking is probably the most identifiable of all of the invaders.

Normandy came next, bringing with them a love of meat, which proved difficult in the hot and dry climate. They were more successful with introducing salt cod to the Sicilian table, but given the abundance of fresh fish, that is a dubious legacy. Although they did bring a great era of prosperity to Palermo as the importance of Siracusa fades. Spain enters the picture around 1479 bringing with them some of their finds from the New World: cocoa, corn, turkey, and tomatoes.

Then there is a very long period where things did not so go so well for Sicily. There is a terrible outbreak of the plague, earthquakes, and the assimilation of Sicily into Italy was a bloody battle for many years.

Today, Sicily, which is the largest island in the Mediterranean, with the tallest and most active volcano in Europe, provides a large percentage of the grain and fruits and vegetables consumed in Italy.

This barely scratches the surface of the evolution of Sicilian cookery. There is a book, that sounds very interesting and I hope would answer a lot of questions that I have about who-what-where, “Pomp & Sustenance” by Mary Taylor Simeti. Doing this research was somewhat frustrating, because different sources cite various products as being introduced by different groups. For example, one source says that the carcofi and cardoons were probably wild and native to the island, another source says that the Greeks brought them. If I had the time, I would love to continue the research. It would be interesting to pick one item, one ingredient and research it further, something like the traditional way the tuna is caught, or the influence of the monasteries, etc. etc.

Another interesting book, that I just finished reading, is “The Almond Picker” by Simonetta Agnello Hornby, which takes place in the 1960’s in Sicily. Not a particularly food oriented book, but very evocative of the time and place.

And just because…..here is a photo I took last summer when we were in Palermo. Now, here is a horse that you don’t see every day!

[hathor]

NO PONTORMO!!! You will not get rid of my arancini!!   

I gotta try the Priest's Mistress Potatoes for the name alone!

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Enrico, calma, calma! I didn't know.

* * *

Are there any threads devoted to the amazing names of Italian dishes? Sicily's seem to be particularly rich in both historical/cultural information and playful vulgarities, usually at the expense of the Church or body parts.

Kevin's food blog last year includes one that I'll omit below, inviting you to look for the link at the beginning of this thread and see for yourself. Clifford Wright often comments on the names for the following among others:

Sciatre e Matre: Eggplant sandwich resembling buttocks; the expression also means "Way?!"

Cugghiune dell' Ortolano: stuffed baby eggplant, apparently evocative of the farmhand's testicles

Olio Santo: Cardamom flavored EVOO; holy oil

Riso con gli Angeli: Rice with angels; actually squid, mussels & shrimp

Pasta a Vento Barba di San Benedetto: Dessert pasta named after Saint Benedict's beard

Spaghetti al Mataroccu: Silly Spaghetti

Lingue di Passero: Sparrow tongues; name for tagliatelle

Nidi di scuma: Another dessert pasta called nests of foam upon the waves of the sea

Spaghetti alla Sala Murisca Taratata: Commemorating medieval battle between Emir Ibn al-Hawwas & Norman Count Roger I; others are called "alla Saracena" or share names with North African countries, e.g. Chachichouka, a vegetarian dish of vegetables and eggs.

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I know! I kept finding weird stuff, like "virgin's breasts" and "the priest's ass". Is this sarcasm directed at the friars? Or is the Sicilian mind just a little bit fixated on sex?

[hathor]

I've been 'challenged' to come up with a fennel granita...any ideas???  Fennel-orange..and???

http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11525461...2363_196565.jpg

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Fennel, orange and a splash of a liqueur - Campari? Or fennel, orange, fig/raisin?

Crazy from the heat (and all those beautiful pictures of everyone's food),

Claudia

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I really like the idea of fennel, orange, compari. I'm trying now to figure out the best way to extract the flavor from the fennel.... could I be moving any slower??? Must be the heat!

[FoodMan]

Great looking cannoli Andrew. I just bought some cannoli tubes and I am planning on trying my hand at those soon.

Lasrt night we had another recipe from C. Wright's "Cucina Paradiso", Baked Rice. He has two recipes in there. A festive one with a very long list of ingredients and a simpler one that contains some veal, proscuitto, cheese and a few other things. So I made the second one. The rice is arborio, cooked till tender and mixed with chopped boiled egg, pecorino (Locatelli), and some of the meat cooking sauce. The filling was supposed to be veal but I used chopped up turkey thigh meat instead.

Here is the casserole before putting the final layer of rice and bread crumbs

Out of the oven

Served

If you've never tried this before, you should. It is so flavorful, delicious and light at the same time. My favorite bits are those around the edge that get nice and crispy. I will be making this again for sure.

[Pontormo]

Here is a critical difference, the Greeks...came as colonizers...

Clearly, the whole history of pasta is completely unclear, and I’m not touching this one...   

Doing this research was somewhat frustrating,  because different sources cite various products as being introduced by different groups. For example, one source says that the carcofi and cardoons were probably wild and native to the island, another source says that the Greeks brought them.

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Regarding your question about Sardegna and Sicily, comparing the cuisines of the two islands, I suspect you answer your question about differences & "influences" in the first sentence I have quoted here. Most invaders come with the intentions of colonizing, but not all develop major settlements. While Andrew the Syracusophile should jump in to speak about the ancient world, Sicily is associated with figures such as Aeschylus, Achimedes and Plato.

Equally important is the fact that Palermo became the site of three successive COURTS in the Middle Ages, first early in the ninth century, when Arabs established an emirate less than a hundred years after the Umayyads fled the Middle East and in Cordoba (c. 756-1031), built a cosmopolitian court whose wealth and longevity surpassed all others in Western Europe until Paris became Paris. I don't know how much the Muslim court of Sicily resembled the caliphate in Spain, but in Spain, the rich indigenous cultures of Jews & Christians intermingled with the new Islamic traditions if always with the understanding of who ruled.

A kind of medieval multiculturalism was definitely an essential aspect of the later Norman court, especially given the evidence left by Roger II. The Western ruler was equally enamored of the thriving Arab workshops in Sicily as he was of Byzantine art. Cf. his coronation robe (c. 1134) which I am linking since it is somewhat related to the preoccupations of eGullet; the ferocious tigers standing regally and dominant over docile camels are about to devour their prey. The gold embroidered border is inscribed in Kufic, not Latin, wishing the ruler changeless, unending pleasures both day and night. When the Hohenstaufen eventually became the rulers in Southern Italy, most notably under Frederick II (d. 1250), the inclusiveness of previous courts continued, especially fruitful in the development of new, more empirical forms of natural observation that were founded, in part, on the interest that Arab scientists had in classical Greek texts.

These powerful, wealthy and worldy courts must have fostered an equally elaborate, lavish tradition of intermingling cuisines that Sardegna lacked when it was simply a territory of successive and sometimes unknown entities. The so-called foreigners became natives and developed an indigenous Sicilian cuisine. In Sardegna, signs of culinary dissemination come later, tied to Genoa (the use of Sardinian cheese, for example, in pesto) and the French (stuffing animals inside animals in Napoleon's circles), both decidedly foreign presences on the smaller island.

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Regarding the state of current scholarship, isn't the first known record of dried pasta in Italian cuisine attributed to Sicily in the 12th century?

As for artichokes, Wright says the Arabs brought them. Somewhere else I think I read that Ancient Rome probably knew only cardoons, not artichokes.

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Thanks, Hathor! Soup looks great, Andrew! Always good to have more books to read, Pedie! I can throw around exclamation marks as much as you, Henry!

ETA: Elie, wow! You seem to be making just about everything in Wright that appeals to me, too. I've just finished the last of the leftovers and will tackle the purple cauliflower tonight.

Edited July 13, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Andrew Fenton]

Here is a critical difference, the Greeks...came as colonizers...

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Regarding your question about Sardegna and Sicily, comparing the cuisines of the two islands, I suspect you answer your question about differences & "influences" in the first sentence I have quoted here. Most invaders come with the intentions of colonizing, but not all develop major settlements. While Andrew the Syracusophile should jump in to speak about the ancient world, Sicily is associated with figures such as Aeschylus, Archimedes and Plato.

As much as I love the Greeks, I don't know that we should privilege them too much as colonists over invaders. Greek Sicily was the wealthiest part of the Mediterranean (at least during the fifth century BCE) and the Greek influence on the island was profound and long-lasting. But they can be described as invaders as much as the Romans or Normans or Muslims can; it's just harder to write history from a Siceliot or Elymian point of view.

And most of the peoples who invaded Sicily (at least before the 19th and 20th centuries) stuck around and left their marks. There's a scene in the movie Patton where George C. Scott is in Palermo and describes the city as the most invaded patch of real estate in the world. He lists all the people who've invaded the island, from the Phoenicians to the Americans... it's quite a list.

As to the Sardinia vs. Sicily question, my guess is that it has to do with Sicily's greater importance in the economy of the Mediterranean. Thanks to its size, agricultural importance and location! location! location!, Sicily was very rich for a very long time; Sardinia, as far as I know, has always been kind of a backwater. The real question is, why did Sicily go from being so wealthy (as it was at least up through the Normans) to being so poor? I have my theories, but that's another topic...

[Pontormo]

Then, there's Naples....

[Andrew Fenton]

Lasrt night we had another recipe from C. Wright's "Cucina Paradiso", Baked Rice. He has two recipes in there. A festive one with a very long list of ingredients and a simpler one that contains some veal, proscuitto, cheese and a few other things. So I made the second one. The rice is arborio, cooked till tender and mixed with chopped boiled egg, pecorino (Locatelli), and some of the meat cooking sauce. The filling was supposed to be veal but I used chopped up turkey thigh meat instead.

Elie, this looks terrific. It looks like a variation of the baked macaroni that I'm still planning to make, one of these days... Can you pass along the recipe? Next week, I have friends coming over for dinner; I'd promised them a Sicilian dinner, only to learn that one of them won't eat fish. (Grr.) This could be perfect.

Edited July 13, 2006 by Andrew Fenton (log)

[Ling]

That baked arborio rice dish looks like just the thing for a rainy day! (It was pouring in Vancouver yesterday...I could've used a steaming bowl of that for dinner. )

OK I finally decided on the menu for tomorrow night. I dropped the cauliflower fritters in favour of chickpea fritters b/c there's only 2 ingredients in the chickpea fritter recipe (chickpea flour, parsley, and seasoning and water) and we're trying to pull off a longer menu...

So the menu is:

-antipasto platter (meats from Salumi)

-eggplant caponata, chickpea fritters

-arancini (guanciali, pea, pecorino romano)

-ribeyes with anchovy, parsley and garlic sauce

-Sicilian lifeguard calamari

-chocolate pistachio cannoli

Originally, I was going to do "Ling-style" cassata -- chocolate sponge cake, chocolate ricotta chestnut cream with pistachios, and chocolate ganache instead of the chocolate buttercream I see in the more modern recipes, but one of our guests is pregnant and is abstaining from alcohol, so I decided to go with the cannoli instead.

Edited July 13, 2006 by Ling (log)