SIX

Virgins’ Breasts, Chancellor’s Buttocks, and Other Convent Delicacies

And first ’tis right and justice asks that I

With praising the Origlione sisters should commence,

A convent above them all to hold on high,

Most particular in pomp and in magnificence….

Their impanatelle are the awe and wonder

Of all who’ve tried them, this you may believe;

And should my words give cause to doubt or ponder,

Come, taste, and tell me if I do deceive.

The Martorana, this Eden, paradise on earth,

I wish to praise with verse, with viol and horn.

Blessed the man these sisters deem of worth,

For here the fruits of marzipan are born.

How sweet the chestnut, sweet the carob bean,

The plum, the apricot, the quince so round:

For such as these three Jesuits were seen

To brawl and fight and roll upon the ground.

A month ago I felt my senses fail,

But when a sfinci from the Stigmata I was fed,

My face, which first had been so ghostly pale,

To life reborn, became a sanguine red.

In virtue quite elect, a worthy cause for feast,

This convent’s ravazzate have such fame

That once I heard an ancient Jesuit priest

Say,“Lapis philosophorum is their name!”

Abbot Giovanni Meli, “Li cosi duci di li batii,” circa 1790

When the Arabs brought sugarcane to Sicily, they also brought their love for comfits, the sugar-coated “spices for the chamber” that gained rapid popularity among the European nobility of the age of the Crusades. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries comfits were imported from the Levant and so made their way into the castles and manors of Europe, where they sweetened courtly dalliance and assuaged pious appetites during the Lenten fasts. Together with almond paste and preserved or candied fruits, they form a particular category of food that, although it became known in England as “banqueting stuff,” was not considered as part of the meal, but rather as a refreshment to be served apart.

By the end of the Norman era their production was well established in Sicily, and Frederick II’s laws regulated the confectioner’s trade. Such was the fame achieved by Sicilian confectionery that together with perfumes and oils and other exotic luxuries it had become part of the popular image of Palermo that is reflected in Boccaccio’s description of sex and seduction in Palermo’s public baths:

At this stage the attendants produced graceful silver perfume-bottles, some full of rose-water, and some of orange-blossom lotion, jessamine and extract of citron-blooms, with which they sprinkled the bathers’ bodies. Later came boxes of sweets and flasks of precious wines, and for some time the lovers partook of the refreshments.

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 1353

The production of comfits and confections in Sicily probably kept pace with the production of sugar itself. This was greatly diminished during the turbulent decades following the extinction of the Norman dynasty, reduced perhaps to small plantations scaled to local consumption. Nonetheless, knowledge and techniques survived, ready to accompany the extraordinary expansion in sugar production that began at the end of the fourteenth century, and to satisfy the requirements of the newly established royal court.

Comfits always appeared among the gifts that the city of Palermo presented to royal ambassadors and other VIPs. In 1417 the wife of the viceroy received a tribute of almond, anise, and coriander comfits, as well as zuccata and candied citron. Fruits in syrup, marzipan tortes, conserves of apples, pears, quinces, and rose petals were also being produced, both for local consumption and for export. Quince conserves are still very popular in Sicily, and are very easy to make.