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Published on: 5/2/2007
Last Visited: 5/2/2007
At the unassuming Caffé Sicilia in the southern town of Noto, pastry master Corrado Assenza is one of the biggest advocates of Sicilian al monds.
Speak with a chef worth his salt and they'll almost inevitably take a good hunk of time preaching the virtues of raw materials.Assenza dwells on such things for about 20 seconds before he launches into the culinary stratosphere on a gastro-philosophical jag that explains both the pri macy of the almond and its place in the state of Sicilian pastry making.
Leaving a shot glass of almond milk in front of me, he walks away, returning only when I've finished it.He then places a jelly jar of his homemade almond cream on the table saying, "This is the base.From this, you can make everything."
It's pretty much the first thing he's said and it's not terribly clear what "everything" means.
"These are the bones," he says, pointing at the jar on the table while shaking my knobby wrist.
...
Despite the millennium of Sicilian almond history, Assenza is not just sitting around recreating the classics.His prima case a fumo ("before it became smoke") is layers of cocoa beans, almond, marzipan slices and something he calls "tobacco cream," all topped with strawberry cream.
He's also come up with what he calls insalata di frutta in coppa di mandorle ('fruit salad in an almond cup'), a curious and delicious cousin to strawberry shortcake, where the ingredients of the "cup" include olive oil (butter's a rare bird here) and al mond flour.
If this is a taste of the future, visitors to Noto should look for ward to getting older in Sicily.
"We have too many ways to apply our tradition," he says.
...
While chef Assenza calls al mond cream his "base," Palaz zolo divides the use for his al monds in his sweets into three groups: a Play-Doh-like paste of almond and sugar for frutta di Martorana, "pasta base" which is the same paste further sweetened with honey and egg, and a third paste that gets a shot of pistachio paste to create the outer layer of his cassata.
Palazzolo gives me a spoonful of pasta base, which makes most mothers' cookie dough taste like old Chips Ahoy! batter and ex plains all of the baked goods it goes into.
He gestures toward the top row of a long display case with well over 20 kinds of confections, saying, "They're all made with pasta base."
Like Assenza, Palazzolo doesn't rest on his laurels.Along with his classic cakes and cookies, he's got several distinctly modern looking cakes of his own design, most made with almonds.
Named for his daughter, his torta Laura combines almond milk in a cinnamon genoise, covered with a chocolate almond glaze.He's also come up with an almond gelato that, using modern techniques and a lot of time, produces something that by itself is worth a trip to Sicily.
What's his trick?Running it through a giant emulsifying machine for a whopping 24 hours.Fans of mouthfeel and much of the rest of humanity will find it time well spent.
So, after discussing Assenza and Palazzolo's raft of almond- enhanced offerings and their philosophical and near-spiritual uses, what is Assenza's favorite pastry?
"It's the next one.It's the one I haven't thought of yet."
In the meantime, the duo will let their creations be ambassa dors of the good stuff to locals and tourists alike.
"Each cake," Assenza concludes, "is part of a tale that brings you into our land."
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