Why Cannoli Is One of Sicily’s Best Inventions
Italy has the Fiat, the Colosseum, the Vespa and the Vatican. It has Michelangelo, Andrea Bocelli and Gianluigi Buffon. And Italy has divine Sicilian cannoli. My colleague Sophie from Italiamo can’t resist this Italian delicacy.
“Leave the gun, take the cannoli.” Now, no Godfather-esque scenes take place in my life in which I have to leave guns lying around somewhere, but I wholeheartedly agree with Clemenza about the second part: always take the cannoli with you.
That brilliant movie quote was actually improvised by the actor playing the role, but that’s beside the point. It hits the mark just as surely as the shots that preceded it. Cannoli is one of Sicily’s best inventions, in a place where sweet tooths are in the majority.
The equally sweet name comes from ‘canna’, a diminutive for the reeds they originally wrapped the dough around before frying it. It was the Arabs – who controlled the island around the beginning of the Common Era – who supplied Sicily with sugar cane, citrus fruits, pistachios and almonds. Somewhere around Palermo, someone came up with the idea of turning them into cannoli, for which we are grateful.
Sicilian speciality
By now, cannoli has gone from a Carnival speciality to everyday fare in Sicily, but making them is truly an art. The basic ingredients are fairly simple: flour, sugar, orange zest, Marsala (a fortified Sicilian wine), sometimes egg, and lard or butter. Traditionally, the filling is sweetened ricotta, preferably made from sheep’s milk. Its quality makes a big difference, as it does with much of the culinary heritage from the boot. The best cannoli are eaten immediately after they have been filled; that’s when you taste the contrast between the creamy filling and crispy shell at its best. Crazy toppings or extras in the filling are completely unnecessary, unless there’s pistachio cream nearby.
So if you see a cannolo, you take it with you. When I recently forced my completely stuffed cousin to eat a cannolo after dinner, it did not disappoint him. Nor did he disappoint me: wisely, he observed that the flavour reminded him a little of salted caramel. And although that isn’t exactly accurate, I think it’s a good comparison: all the flavours in cannoli come together in the kind of golden combination you simply have to love.
Cannoli connoisseur
I took my newly acquired role as a cannoli apostle seriously and decided to use my birthday for it, so I planned to treat everyone at the office to cannoli. That plan went awry because we decided to work from home en masse that day. I didn’t give up, but by the time I got a second chance, all the bakers on my radar turned out to be closed. My last resort was a random pizzeria via a bicycle courier. Well, I’ve certainly learned my lesson. Out of sheer desperation, I ate them all myself, without saying a word about them on the shop floor.
The fiasco did, however, set me on a new mission: to become a cannoli connoisseur and find the best cannoli in Amsterdam, which I’ll later treat you to in the form of an article. Naturally, I already have a number of top specimens on my tasting résumé, but I still have quite a way to go. The speed of that journey depends on whether or not my waist size increases.
Source: Italiamo
Read also:
- 5 things not to do when you go to Italy
- 10 Italian sweet treats you’ll want to know
- The innocent pistachio is a source of conflict between these two countries
