Art & culture

The Sicilian marzipan fruit

The Sicilian marzipan fruit are highly colored pastries shaped to look like fruis and vegetables. The Erice's production is worth mentioning as the marzipan

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.