Lindsay Marie Morris

One of my favorite Sicilian treats as a child was torrone, a nut-filled nougat candy my Sicilian grandmother always had on hand, especially for the holidays.

I recently encountered a recipe for torrone in the pages of Giovanna Bellia La Marca's Sicilian Feast, recently reissued as an expanded edition of her 2004 book. 

"Torrone is such a part of Sicilian cuisine that no holiday goes by without it," says Giovanna. "It's delicious. Children love it; adults love it. So it's just part of our culture and kind of a symbol of Sicily."

Giovanna La Marca, who came to the U.S. from Sicily when she was 10 years old, also runs the Kitchen on the Cliff YouTube channel. The name is a nod to the fact that her kitchen is actually on a cliff overlooking Manhattan. 

Giovanna shared with me the history of torrone, how the Sicilian recipe differs from that of mainland Italy, and how this nougat treat has become a Sicilian symbol.

 

 

What is torrone?

Torrone is a nougat candy, and in Sicily, we make it with almonds and sugar or almonds and a combination of sugar and honey. 

It is very much tied to our history. Since antiquity, many people have invaded Sicily. There were the Greeks who made settlements all over Sicily, and they, of course, brought the trees.

The myth is that a boat carrying almond trees and grapevines was going to Puglia, the heel of Italy, which is very close to Greece. And the wind blew it to Sicily. 

But the sweets! Sicily is quite famous for its sweets. One of the great sweets is torrone, and another one is marzipan, which are little sculptures of fruits that are so lifelike that when you see them in the window of the pasticceria, it is just amazing to see the likeness and the artistry with which they are made. 

To achieve that, Sicilians already had almonds, but the sugar was brought by the Arabs around 700, and they planted sugarcane in Sicily.

An interesting side note of that is that the sugar industry in Sicily was dominated by the resident Jews. There was quite a large Jewish colony in Sicily, and they developed the sugar industry. 

Now unfortunately, in 1492, when Spain expelled the Jews, they expelled them not only from their own country but from all the places that they controlled as well, which included Sicily. The Sicilians had no quarrel with the Jews. In fact, the Jewish people really ran the sugar industry. So they waited six months. They didn't want to expel them. But Spain prevailed. And that ended the sugar industry in Sicily, which is a little-known fact but a very interesting one, I think.

 

How does Sicilian torrone differ from torrone found elsewhere in Italy?

Well, the typical torrone of Italy is white, and it's made with a meringue of sugar and almonds and sometimes other nuts and sometimes bits of citron and so on. It is poured on edible rice paper, and that's how it's served and cut. 

In Sicily, it is really almonds surrounded by crunchy caramel. It's very, very crunchy. It's actually a brittle. You can cut it with a knife, and you get all the cross sections of the almonds, which is very pretty. But you can also break it. It breaks in odd shapes, and that's another way that we usually serve it.

 

As a child, I had trouble with it because I didn't have the patience to let it melt in my mouth. I wanted to chew it, and chewing it was a job because it was really quite hard. 

I'm not talking about the soft caramel we all know. I'm talking about true caramel, which, if you pour into a greased bowl and turn the bowl upside down, you end up with a bowl made of caramel.

It's used that way for very high cuisine. In Sicily, we have two cuisines. We have home cooking, which is extremely rich and wonderful because it's influenced by all the invasions. Our invaders did contribute a great deal; they didn't just invade. They contributed to the language. They contributed to music, and they contributed to the food. 

 

What developed in Sicily in the Renaissance was a cuisine for the aristocrats. The cooks were generally trained in France, then came back to Sicily and became the monzu. These professional chefs worked for two entities: the church and the aristocracy. And that was an extraordinary cuisine. 

 

What does torrone symbolize for Sicily?

Well, it's something delicious, and sweets are generally the food that you get at festivals. They're always served at Christmas and for all of the feasts. Every Sicilian town has a patron saint and a feast for the patron saint. 

It really represents Sicily in its products because of the almonds of Sicily, particularly the city of Avola. Avola produces almonds that are called pizzuta, which means pointy almonds. They are very, very fragrant and very flavorful. That, of course, is due to the climate and the soil. In Sicily, the volcanic soil produces fruits and nuts with flavors you don't get otherwise.

Almonds are part of a very important festival in Agrigento. The almonds fruit in February. So, in February, Agrigento is filled with almond trees in bloom. The almond trees in bloom have such a heady perfume that you almost feel enveloped by the scent of the almonds and the almond trees. So there's a lot of folklore around it.

 

What was your goal with your cookbook, and what do you hope readers will take away?

I think I had very specific reasons for writing a book. I am a cook. I am a passionate cook. I have always loved to cook. I started when I was 10 years old. 

My mother cooked well, but she wasn't passionate about it. She had to have a perfectly orderly house and a floor that you could eat off of. My father did a lot of cooking, and he was very good, and I was his assistant. So if he made, say, risotto, I was the one who chopped the mushrooms. And the mushrooms for the risotto had to be about the same size as the grains of rice. So, I had a very good beginning. 

I met Italian Americans and Sicilian Americans, and they always said, "I remember my grandmother's cooking. It was so delicious. It was so wonderful. But she didn't leave any recipes, and I was too young to ask for recipes."

I heard this over and over again, so I thought, "I would like to write a cookbook that gives them Nonna's recipes."

 

My aim was to give typical and original recipes—not versions of, but the original recipes, the recipes that we all came up with and that our grandmothers cooked.

 

>>Get your copy of Sicilian Feast here!<<

 

 

 

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Named for their shape and often color resembling oranges, arancini (or arancine) are a classic Sicilian street food with origins dating back to 10th-century Arab rule. These deep-fried rice balls are typically coated with bread crumbs and filled with ragù, mozzarella, and peas, but the components vary regionally. The shape also varies: Whereas in Western Sicily, arancine appear as spheres, they are shaped conically to resemble Mount Etna in places like Catania and Messina. Even the name differs by locale. Eastern Sicilians refer to the individual balls as arancino (masculine), while arancina (feminine) is preferred in the West.

But one Palermo-based company, KePalle Arancine d'Autore, is mixing things up even further, offering menu items such as sweet arancine with Nutella, squid-ink risotto arancine stuffed with salmon, chicken curry arancine, and two vegan arancine options. 

I reached out to co-founder and co-owner Danilo Li Muli, the Palermo-based son of internationally renowned artist Gianni Li Muli and former art director at the advertising agency Gomez & Mortisia. Danilo, who started KePalle Arancine d'Autore with his wife, Eva Polanska, shared with me their inspiration, the process for creating new arancine, the arancina's role in culture, customer favorites, and what he hopes people will take away from experiencing their unique rice balls.

 

What prompted you to create KePalle and focus on reinterpreting traditional Sicilian street food?

Creativity and the desire to innovate. I am a creative by profession: I founded and managed an advertising agency for many years. Then, with my wife, we had this revolutionary idea: dedicating an entire restaurant to the Palermo arancina and offering new flavors (even for those who were previously excluded from tradition), expanding the menu with new gourmet, vegan and vegetarian recipes, and at the same time raising the quality of the product that was generally neglected commercially.

 

How do you develop new arancine flavors and recipes?

Quality is our secret. We choose only the best ingredients: Carnaroli rice, real saffron, Fior di Latte mozzarella, ham from the thigh, Sicilian meat, and seasonal vegetables. And to this, we provide a lot of attention, care, and passion in their preparation. Our arancine are prepared in the kitchen at the back of the shop throughout the day. In our shop, they are fried and served hot and crispy at any time of the day.

 

What role do arancine play in Sicilian cuisine and culture?

Arancina is the queen of Palermo street food. It is a popular and noble product. You can eat it every day as street food for a quick lunch or dinner, but in Palermo, it is also a great tradition to eat arancine for the Feast of Santa Lucia on December 13. December 13 is also KePalle's birthday. Double party for us! 

 

Which arancine flavors are favorites among your customers?

Our customers love all our arancini, probably because they are good! But the real plus is the quality. It is not for nothing that we have called them Arancine d'Autore. Our customers feel the difference and appreciate it.

 

If I really had to rank them, I would certainly put the Eat Parade, the traditional arancine with meat and butter, in first place. They would be followed by the arancine with mushrooms and vegetables loved by vegans and vegetarians and the gourmet ones: Rosalia, the arancine with squid-ink risotto and stuffed with salmon, and the Arancina stuffed with mortadella, buffalo mozzarella, and pistachio grains.

 

Tell us about your vegan arancine and how they compare to traditional ones.

It is important to us to be able to meet the needs of all our customers. Vegans and vegetarians are a very important category for us. We respect their ethics, and that is why we want the tradition of arancine to accommodate their tastes as well. We have several dedicated flavors on our menu, interpreting traditional and new recipes. The most popular are the arancina with mushrooms and porcini mushrooms (also loved by those who are not vegan because it is a real "walking" risotto) and the arancina with a vegetable sauce that interprets the classic meat arancina in a vegan way.

 

Can you share a memorable experience or story related to arancine?

The best memory I have of KePalle is certainly linked to the day of our tenth birthday, last December 13. On this occasion, we wanted the gift not to be destined for us but also for our city. For this reason, we organized a charity initiative, donating all proceeds of St. Lucia's Day (the most conspicuous of the year) to the pediatric hospital of Palermo to purchase important medical equipment for the rare diseases department. Doing good for others makes us feel good, and KePalle is always good for us.

 

How does KePalle preserve and promote Sicilian culinary heritage?

KePalle has revolutionized the tradition of arancini—not in a negative sense, but in a positive sense because we have contributed to enriching and carrying it forward. We have added new recipes that are now part of the city's culinary heritage, but above all, we have enhanced the authentic recipe of arancine.

 

KePalle offers a product of the highest level commercially, equal to what grandmothers and mothers prepare at home and comparable to that of a gourmet restaurant. We use authentic and high-quality products that other competitors did not use before and still do not use today: Carnaroli rice, real saffron, Fior di Latte mozzarella... We have revolutionized the arancini precisely because we have rediscovered it, bringing it to its maximum splendor.

 

What do you hope people experience with your arancine?

Those who come to the store to eat our arancine experience a unique, immersive experience that involves all 5 senses. The authentic location, the visual impact of the counter with the arancine, the scents that are released, the story of the product, and, finally, the wide variety of flavors and recipes. It is a feeling that cannot be described and that can only be experienced. All our customers know this, and you can feel it in their expressions when eating, as well as the satisfaction you can feel in their words and in the thousands and thousands of reviews they leave us.

 

 

 

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