Picture it: Sicily, 1650. The people of Palermo are celebrating Martedi Grasso, the Catholic celebration of Fat Tuesday. The streets are jammed with revelers indulging in sweets to enliven the merriment of the Carnevale. Cannoli are being exchanged like beads at the modern day New Orleans Mardi Gras. One Sicilian man, whose name is lost to history, is moved to poetry:
Beddi Cannola di Carnalivari
Megghiu vuccuni a la munnu ‘un ci nn’è:
Sú biniditti spisi li dinari;
Ogni cannolu è scettru d’orgni Re.
Arrivunu li donni a disistari;
Lu cannolu è la virga di Moisè
Cui nun ni mancia, si fazza ammazzari,
Cu li disprezza è un gran curnutu affè! |
Beautiful are the Cannoli of Carnevale,
No tastier morsel in the world:
Blessed is the money used to buy them;
Cannoli are the scepters of all Kings.
Women even desist [from pregnancy]
For the cannolo, which is Moses’s Staff:
He who won’t eat them should let himself be killed;
He who doesn’t like them is a cuckold, Olè! |
That is pride. The Sicilians, a proud people, take particular pride in their cannoli.
A few centuries later, in suburban Maryland, my new high school sweetheart is the daughter of a Sicilian immigrant. She is also a vegan. Her father, Tony, is overjoyed that his daughter’s new boyfriend would gladly eat anything and everything. He takes to cooking me spaghetti with clam sauce and rice balls filled with peas and ground beef while his daughter subsists on baked beans and tofutti cuties. Before long, Tony makes his ritualistic trip up I-95 to Vaccaro’s Italian Pastry Shop in Baltimore’s Little Italy. Upon his return I find Tony in the kitchen with a glowing expression on his face, a whopping spoonful of sweet ricotta in one hand, and a delicate fried wafer in the other. It is time for my cannoli education.
(The Albemarle Street location as seen on vaccaropastry.com)
Tony inserts the ricotta into the waiting shell before my eyes, sprinkles it with powdered sugar, and triumphantly serves me dessert at eleven in the morning. Before I swallow my first bite, I know I have found the first true love of my young life. The look of almost giddy anticipation on Tony’s face prompts me to speak with my mouth still full. “So good,” I moan, flakes of shell flying from my lips. A big slap on the back, a few more bites, and I am the son Tony never had.
Still, Tony feels a responsibility to teach me the true Sicilian way. He carefully explains to me exactly why my first cannolo tasted so good. The ricotta must always be stored in a cool, dry place. The shells must be made with Marsala wine. And the two must never, ever meet until just before the cannoli are to be enjoyed, lest the shells lose their crunch and the ricotta grows warm and runny.
My love of cannoli flourished, so Tony began making extra trips to Baltimore to be sure he was stocked up for my frequent visits. Much like the “cutter” in Breaking Away, I began thinking I was Italian, although every member of my family is of Eatern European Jewish descent. Tony soon dubbed me “The Cannoli Kid,” and I took to the moniker with a Sicilian’s pride.
Years passed and, while my relationship with Tony’s daughter did not withstand the test of time, my love affair with the cannoli was beginning to blossom. Mostlly as a result of my mounting indentity crisis, I found myself studying in Florence, Italy during my junior year of college. Once I arrived, I didn’t waste any time reaching my adopted motherland.
I skipped orientation week and took the overnight train to the toe of the boot. My new apartment in Florence had seemed alien and unwelcoming, but when I got off the ferry in the port town of Messina, I felt like I had come home. The people expressed that familiar sort of warmth I’d come to love back in Maryland. The distinctly Mediterranean weather agreed with my constitution, and the food was the best I’d ever eaten. Like Tony had done for me years earlier, I considered it my responsibility to introduce my classmates back in Florence to the glories of real Sicilian cannoli.
I made sure to eat cannoli with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the way I do with lobster when I am in Maine, or pickles on the Lower East Side. I followed my belly to the tiny hilltop town of Corleone. Yes, The Godfather was filmed there, and a cinematic pilgrimage was part of the reason for my visit. But more importantly, Corleone is located in the heart of Sicily’s sheep country. The people of Corleone, therefore, make superior ricotta for their connoli.
After wandering around the town for a few hours fielding an array of confused looks from the Corleonese, I met Eustachio in a piazza. We exchanged niceties in my broken Italian, and I asked something to the effect of, “Where could I find a tasty cannolo around here?” His eyes lit up.
(The piazza in which I met my destiny)
Eustachio whisked me across a couple cobblestoned blocks of Corleone, announcing to friends he passed the excitement that was about to ensue. By the time we reached the cool, dry basement of a poorly stocked grocery store that his uncle owned, I was surrounded by a least half a dozen eager Sicilian men. Eustachio did the honors of building my cannolo before my eyes, just as Tony taught me years earlier. I felt the anticipation in the air as I took my first bite. It was even better than the first time back in Tony’s kitchen. My knees actually went weak, and I shouted, “Que buono!” A joyous cheer went up all around me, and I was showered with brotherly shoulder smacks and bear hugs. I felt as though I had just gotten married.
Eustachio arranged for his uncle to supply me twenty shells and a gallon jar full of ricotta at an unnecessarily discounted price. He imposed the strict condition that I do everything possible to keep the ricotta cool during the sixteen hour journey back to Florence. He even drove me to the train station in Palermo with the air conditioning on full blast. The rest was up to me.
Back in Messina, I had to wait two hours for the train to be dismantled and loaded onto a ferry to the mainland. Under the blazing Mediterranean sun, I sprinted to a nearby focacceria. My Italian was not good enough to explain my situation, even though I had picked up the thick Sicilian accent nature had intended for me. The proprietor refused to even look at the contents of my wrinkled paper bag, and he seemed to think I was some American drug fiend who needed a place to hide his stash.
I started to grow desperate, pacing the floor, gesticulating wildly with my hands, and repeating “mingia,” the word for fuck in the Sicilian dialect. These were things the proud Sicilian standing before me could comprehend, so he finally inspected my mysterious bag. I understood him say something about “cannoli” and “why didn’t you say so” as he hurriedly shoved my jar in his soda case. The ricotta was saved, and when I returned to Florence, I bestowed the precious cannoli upon my classmates. I felt like Tony must have when he gave me the sacred gift.
Since I moved to New York, I’ve scoured the five boroughs for cannoli that rivaled the ones I first had back in Maryland or the ones I found everywhere in Sicily. But even institutions like Veniero’s Pastry Shop on 11th Street and Fortunato Brothers in Williamsburg refused to hand-pipe their ricotta. Sicilians had immigrated to New York City in large numbers more than a century ago. But no matter where I looked or who I consulted for advice, I could not find a cannolo that would satisfy Tony, Eustachio, or me. Had New York’s Sicilian population lost its sense of pride in the crown jewel of their ancestral cuisine?
Last week, I picked up an old man with warm, smiling eyes in my cab. I took him from Grand Central Station out to Cypress Avenue on the border between Brooklyn and Queens. As we passed a modest storefront at Stanhope Street, he spoke to me unsolicited in a familiar accent. “This place here has great cannoli.”
Within minutes of dropping him off in Ridgewood, I was seated on the sidewalk beneath the “Euro Cafe” awning. I ordered two cannoli from a woman with that same familiar accent. I watched her at the counter, squeezing cool ricotta into a fresh shell that smelled of Marsala wine. Before swallowing the first bite, my taste-buds transported me back to Tony’s kitchen, then to Corleone, and finally to Martedi Grasso.
Euro Cafe, Cypress Ave btwn Stanhope and Himrod, Brooklyn
Check out http://www.famousfatdave.com for a chuckle or to book an eating tour
I just wanted to thank you for introducing me to Rocco’s, and
consequently, one of the most heavenly foodie experiences of my life
to date. Keep up the great work with blog and your reviews in NFT and
Gothamist, and I hope one day to partake in a Wheels of Steel Tour
myself!
All the best,
Zhaddi
