Above: Il maestro di croccante
Of course, there’s gelato. The single scoop pictured below is rich hazelnut from what many claim is the best gelateria on Ortigia, Gusto on Via Roma. But granita, an icy slush in a multitude of flavors, is found everywhere as well and is perhaps even more popular among the natives. The cupful below is caffe, sweetened black coffee; no cup of espresso needed that day.
An unusual habit in Sicily is that these are fair game as breakfast foods. It’s not at all uncommon for Sicilians to order a granita with brioche on the side or an unwieldy looking brioche split 3/4 of the way through and stuffed to overflowing with two scoops of gelato in the morning hours.
And then there’s the deep dark Modica chocolate. When Spanish traders brought chocolate back from the Americas, Sicily was ruled by the Spanish crown and so acquired taste for it at the same time. But in the southeastern Sicilian town of Modica, makers didn’t follow the European trend of adding cream or additional cocoa butter to the cacao. Much like the traditional Oaxacan chocolate of Mexico, the sole ingredients are sugar, cacao, spices and maybe bits of fruit.
In Modica, the chocolate is never heated above 113 degrees, meaning the sugar does not melt but remains granular in the bar. Not only is it wonderful to let dissolve on your tongue, but, presumably, with no fat save what is found naturally in the ground cacao beans, it must be lower in calories. The technique is so uncommon that Modica chocolates bear an IGP stamp, meaning the name is geographically protected, like Champagne. You can’t walk through a market without spotting it.
And then, at the foot of Via Roma, the sweet smell of melting sugar is impossible to miss. The flashy knife-wielding croccante man rapidly tames the hot concoction into a flat plank before it has time to harden on the marble slab. While much of the street-corner artistry is to seduce tourists, the shop is well-known for the freshest croccante in Ortigia. Croccante ingredients are simple: caramelized sugar, honey, perhaps a bit of orange and a mountain of nuts. Wonderful.
I know what you’re thinking. What about cannoli? Don’t worry, plenty of that will come later.
Postcards from Barton Springs 