makes 4 loaves
Also called prosciutto bread, this delicious calorie bomb is a reliable old warhorse at Sicilian-American bakeries all over Brooklyn. I first tasted it when Peter took me to the nearby neighborhood of Carroll Gardens, where Mazzola Bakery has occupied a corner for over eighty years. On Peter’s advice we bought two loaves. “We’re going to devour one on the way home, so you might as well have another on hand to analyze.” Then, like generations of Brooklynites, we parked ourselves on the stoop of a nearby brownstone for a munch break. I ripped off a piece and handed the bag over to Peter, who did the same. The bag already had some spots on it where the lard had seeped through.
As we sat and ate and chatted and watched the world go by, like generations of stoop sitters before us, four of NYPD’s finest in a squad car from the nearby Seventy-Sixth Precinct stopped to pick up some coffee and a few pastries. Young mothers pushing strollers the size of small SUVs threaded their way behind a line of customers. By the time we had finished chatting and people watching, we had eaten our way down to the end of that first loaf, and we were as full as you feel after a second helping on Thanksgiving.
Over the next few months, we sampled more lard breads. At Caputo’s Bake Shop on Court Street—which, like Mazzola’s, always has a line of customers stocking up on semolina loaves and chewy onion rolls—we found a bread that was less larded and too “breadish.”
Peter suggested a trip to Villabate Alba, his favorite Italian bakery, located in Bensonhurst, an old middle-to-working-class neighborhood that had not yet been gentrified into a mix of espresso bars and expensive clothing stores.
Dark wood accents everywhere, brightly lit glass cases and equally brightly colored pastries dazzle you as you pass over the threshold from the workaday neighborhood into a store that looks like nothing so much as the inside of a jewel box: creamy cannoli, mini pies filled with apricot preserves and topped with toasted pine nuts, colorful cakes topped with marzipan replicas of fresh fruits as well executed as any old master’s still life, and, almost hidden in the bread section, a lard loaf which, though delicious, was not much different than the breads we had already tasted.
We got closer to the secret at G. Esposito & Sons Jersey Pork Store on Court Street. In front of the store stood a statue of a smiling and very plump pig, a giveaway that there are pork products to be had here. Salami, prosciutto, and mortadella hung in profusion from the ceiling. Pork products also filled the showcase—as did lard bread.
I asked the proprietor about those little bits of meat, largely unidentifiable, that studded the best lard breads. “I think it’s called ciccoro,” he said.
“What is it? How do they make it?”
“Not sure,” he said, either because he truly wasn’t sure or because you don’t reveal secrets.
But ciccoro was all I needed to hear. Within minutes I was Googling the word on my phone. No luck. I tried “chicorro.” Then “cichorro.” Three strikes.
As a Hail Mary, we fired off an email to Mario Batali, who is most obliging when it comes to questions of la cucina Italiana.
“Is it ciccioli?” he replied, signing off with “peace thru pasta.”
This time Google paid off. Ciccioli is made by rendering the fat of leftover cold cuts along with pork belly—it is essentially a kind of confit in which the bits are pressed into a cake. If you want to make an authentic old-style lard bread, you can’t go to the supermarket and pick up a package in the ciccioli aisle. This is strictly a homegrown product, but well worth the trouble required to make it. The recipe below yields a bit more ciccioli than you’ll need for the bread. You can use the remainder in a frittata or omelet or as a pizza topping.