Near Pino’s childhood home in Cardillo, a small Palermo borgata (small suburb, urban outcrop), a grandissima pasticceria/bar, Pasticceria/Bar Gardenia, draws in customers from all over.
The tempting goodness on rows and rows of shelves does it:
Veritable opere d’arte di pasticceria (“pastry artworks”):
I’d head there every morning during an early December (2022) visit to Pino’s family – sometimes on my own (with Pino sleeping in at home) – my most recent New Yorker in my bag.
For me, un caffe’ as they make
Un caffe’ espresso in Sicily (tops) coupled with a canolicchio (mini-cannolo) accompanied by a good leisurely read were the perfect start to the day during our Sicily sojourn.
Just to the right of the cannoli – each topped with a slice of candied orange peel, filled also with candied fruit and sheep’s milk ricota – the smaller canolicchi were carefully lined up, with many already missing by the time I headed to the Pasticceria/Bar Gardenia
.
I generally ordered “solo un canolicchio, per favore” (“just a canolicchio, please”), telling myself that a cannolo would be too big.
Ha.
Often after my espresso, I’d head back to the bar to ask barista Giovanni for “un altro canolicchio, per favore.” A second one was slipped onto my plate with a knowing smile.
Like many of the pastry – and savory – enticements of the Pasticceria/Bar Gardenia, the cannoli embody Palermo culinary history.
There are allusions to cannoli as far back as the Roman Empire: Cicero savored them in 70 B.C. while on a trip to the area of present-day Sicily and wrote that he did not feel well after tasting a local sweet, “a tube of flour filled with milky cream.”
Legend recounts, though, that today’s cannoli (“tubes”) were born in the city of Caltanissetta (central Sicily) during the Arab domination (10th and 11th-centuries).
The city’s original Arabic name was “Kalt El Nissa” or “castle of the women,” for here the Saracen emirs formed their harems. It is said that the elaboration of culinary creations served as a time-passing activity for the emirs’ wives who added their own touches – almonds, honey and ricotta – to that sweet already exiting in Roman times.
Subsequently, with the end of the Arab domination in Sicily, the harem disappeared and one version of the storia culinaria del cannolo theorizes that perhaps some of the women remained in Italy, converting to Christianity and later withdrawing to convents.
Another version recounts that the cannolo was born in the convents, a creation of the nuns.
Whether originating in Rome or in an Arabic harem or in a medieval convent, il cannolo siciliano lives on in its glory in many a Siclilian pasticeria.
Do try those at the Pasticceria/Bar Gardenia, Cardillo (Palermo).
Read more here about Bar Gardenia.
See my video on Sicily as a “culinary mosaic.”
Read about a stunning historic villa, not far from Bar Gardenia
See my video of Villa Boscogrande, historic Palermo villa setting of a famous film
Read about a famous Palermo open market with Palermo buonissimo street food
See my video about a noted seafood stand in Palermo.
