The Sicilian marzipan fruit or (frutta Martorana).
These highly colored pastries shaped to look like
fruit, vegetables and other things,
bear a story that takes us way back in time and
to far off places.
Let’s start with the raw material:
almond pasta or marzipan as it is better known as,
a name that comes from certain kinds of vases from
the Indian city Martaban,
a ward that has passed through Arabic to mean
” the mixture of sugar and spices ” that was traditionally
kept in those precious containers.
Secondly,
the tradition of celebrating All Saints Day and
All Soul’s Day at the beginning of November with
auspicious cakes that reflected the abundance and colors
of summer (Martorana fruit, packed into small baskets
tied with ribbons were given to the good children;
bad children received coal,
though made of extremely sweet marzipan).
Lastly,
the courtesy title due to the aristocratic Eloisa Martorana,
1193, founder of the Palermo convent that made history,
especially for the Benedectine nuns’ ability in making
pastries.
As time passed by all religious events were bestowed
with a special marzipan cake;
little sheep for Christmas,
small horses and donkeys for Saint Anthony,
small pigs for Saint Sebastian,
lambs for Easter.
When the secret knowledge of how to make the cakes
leaked from the convents into the hands of the confectioners,
the Martorana marzipan fruit broke all boundaries
with the calendar or indeed with imagination.
The production from Erice,
in the Trapani area, is worth mentioning as
the marzipan fruit takes on the shape of flowers.