You Can’t Have One Cannoli…

We eat a lot of Italian food in the United States and feel at home with foreign names of foods and dishes. Pizza and pasta are as common as hotdog or apple pie. We order spaghetti alla carbonara with confidence and scratch our heads at “noodles with bacon and eggs” on English-language tourist menus. But sometimes we get it wrong.

I grew up in New Jersey and learned Italian as an adult, studying on my own and in intensive language schools in Italy. I had already reached an advanced level before my first visit to Sicily, where I was enrolled in a two-week course at a private school in Taormina. Walking down Corso Umberto, its main street a few times a day, I couldn’t miss the giant cannoli prominently displayed in a pastry shop window. I don’t eat many sweets, but after a week, I thought, “When in Sicily…” Because when I had been in Rome, I always thought that I’d wait until I got to Sicily for cannoli, no matter how many signs there were attesting to the authenticity of the Eternal City’s Sicilian pastry shops.

CANNOLI IN SICILY

I entered the pasticceria in Taormina, pretty certain of its autenticità and ordered “un cannoli, per favore.” The Sicilian behind the counter began filling pastry shells from a vat of sheep ricotta. He filled a couple shells and wrapped them up. “Ne volevo solo uno,” I said as he handed me the packet. I only wanted one. “UN cannolo?”, he responded incredulously. I held up my index finger once again as confirmation. He held his ground.

And that’s when I realized, not only had his word ended with a vowel, but he was holding up his thumb… I sheepishly took my due cannoli and had my first authentic Sicilian cannolO in Taormina that day. The ricotta filling was made with the classic recipe using sheep’s milk, which I prefer over the cow version. It was delicious, both the crispy shell and its creamy contents. I gave the other one to a fellow student. I couldn’t have one cannoli but didn’t have space in my stomach for two, either.

Un cannolo

ONE CANNOLO, TWO CANNOLI

Of course, I knew masculine and singular noun endings and their plurals, but having grown up with “cannoli” in a nonchanging form, I never gave it a second thought. We eat two pizzas in America while Italians eat due pizze. Would you like peperoni on your pizza? Be careful, in Italy, peperoni are peppers.

Delicious, homemade mini cannoli at a friend’s house in Basilicata

Many years later, I saw a news piece on Italian TV about the best cannoli in Sicily. They went into an old woman’s house in a village, the name of which I don’t remember. The whole camera team crammed into her kitchen, and the experts determined that the superior taste was due to a combination of the quality of the organic milk and the hands of this particular woman who massaged the ricotta. My aunt used to say that about my grandmother’s cookies – it must have been the oil in her hands that made them taste so good.

CANNOLI, IN PARTS…

Since that time, I’ve eaten many cannoli in Italy. They’re also excellent in Calabria, just across the strait. When in Messina for the day, it’s a treat to buy them unfilled for consumption back on the mainland. Cannoli should be filled in the moment to keep the shell crisp, as my friend Luisa is doing in this photo.

Luisa filling a cannolo at home

Here are the results of Luisa’s labor.

Ready to eat!

Of late, the cannolo scomposto is gaining popularity in fancy restaurants. I wonder how the broken-up cannolo came about. Drop something in the kitchen?

A fancy cannolo scomposto with pistachios and chocolate sauce

Try a cannolo siciliano in Southern Italy! Join me on one of my small-group Calabria Tours (I have three itineraries) or on my Basilicata Tour of Calabria’s northern neighbor.

Read about the fascinating Calabrian region in my book Calabria: The Other Italy, described by Publisher’s Weekly as “an intoxicating blend of humor, joy, and reverence for this area in Italy’s deep south,” and explore Calabria’s northern neighbor in my book Basilicata: Authentic Italy, “recommended to readers who appreciate all things Italian” by the Library Journal.

Follow me on social media: Basilicata Facebook page, Calabria: The Other Italy’s Facebook page, Karen’s Instagram and Karen’s Twitter for beautiful pictures and information.
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CALABRIA: The Other Italy and BASILICATA: Authentic Italy make great gifts!